Among Others (Hugo Award Winner - Best Novel)

Goodness, this had such potential to be a beautiful novel. Upon reading the summary, I was hooked. Let's see…there's a child book-lover (and someone with a disability to boot) living among the real world and fairies, escapes an abusive parent, loses a twin, starts a new life at school, has aunts who may/may not be witches…it sounds awesome. Alas...

While it does have a fascinating prologue, it is all downhill from there. Basically it's lists…lists…lists. The narrator is a young teenager, and while she has a powerful voice with gift to form unique, lovely sentences, mostly she chatters on about what grades she got, what classes she's gonna take, what bus route she's on, what books she's reading. When I say chatters on about, I mean lists it all, not describes, not interacts…just lists. Walton focuses so, so, so much time on this aspect, and skips over the big stuff. This girl lost her twin sister, escaped a mother who almost killed her, and is starting a relationship with her estranged father, making friends and having trouble fitting in at school…but all that is barely talked about. It's there, it's mentioned, but nothing more…that drives the reader crazy. We wanna know this stuff.

And ugh, for being a girl who believes and understands magic so deeply…this story is devoid of magic. I understand she's going to an English boarding school which is in sharp contrast to her Welsh childhood, but there are not even memories of magic from her past. Or what magic exactly is in the book's world. She doesn't reflect on it. Just a beautiful mention here or there that could lead to so much exploration and climax and action and character development, but is dropped.

Another let down was her relationship with books. This girl is obsessed with reading, especially Sci-Fi…a genre I was hoping to learn a lot about from her. I wouldn't mind if she chatted on and about them (as long as there was story too). But again, all she does is list all the books she reads and orders from the library. Barely does she discuss them and what they mean to her. The sad thing is, she has the potential to. The author clearly has passion and understanding of literature. There are gem lines here and there about certain books that enchant you, but then they're cut off right away. And the narrator has so many opportunities to discuss books with other characters she meets, but that too is missed out on.

I was highly disappointed by this book. I wanted to love it so much. The author can write beautifully, the set up is rich with plot and characters…what went wrong? She just relied too much on capturing a "teenage" voice of what happened each day, and avoided any possible climax or emotional experience in the book. Teenagers can process what's going on in their world, they can write their own stories, so I don't understand why this special kid with such incredible past made her story so boring.

Are you a fan of science fiction and fantasy? If you are, I recommend you get your hands on a copy of Among Others by Jo Walton.

The book opens in 1975. Two young twins, Morganna and Morwenna, attempt a bit of fairy magic to close down a chemical plant in their home in Wales. When nothing happens, they think they've failed; however, the next day they read in the paper that the plant is closing. If you believe the narrator in Among Others, fairies are real, magic is real, and both are just a part of our world. Mori, the narrator, is very matter-of-fact about that.

Four years later, in 1979, Mori has just been sent to boarding school by the father she hasn't seen since she was a baby. The previous year, she and her twin fought a sensational battle with their mother, a witch, to keep her from controlling the fairies and taking over the world. As a result of the battle, Mori is crippled and her twin is dead. After running away to escape her mother, Mori was sent to live with her father and his three sisters (yes, his three sisters, which as anyone who loves fantasy knows is a significant number).

In many fantasy novels, the battle with the mother would be the climax. Not in this book. It's a starting point, something that sets up the rest of the plot, but not the focus. The book is a refreshing, down-to-earth, original story about how Mori picks up the pieces and finds a place for herself after her world is torn apart. Mori is a very interesting character with a lot of depth who makes astute observations about her fellow students at school and what's left of her family. I liked her, and I enjoyed watching her relationship with her father and his father change and grow.

What keeps Mori sane is her love of reading, especially science fiction and fantasy. She forms cordial relationships with her school librarian and the librarian at the town library. (An aside: how could any librarian not think kindly toward a book that opens with the dedication "This is for all the libraries in the world, and the librarians who sit there day after day lending books to people.") Mori understands the power of great books and stories to heal and change. Mori has nothing in common with her fellow students, and her life is dramatically changed when the town librarian asks her to join a Science Fiction book club. Finally she finds a place she fits, where she can talk with people she likes and who like her. There are many references to great sci fi throughout Among Others, not only through the book club scenes but in Mori's day-to-day life. I feel like I need to reread the book, make a list of all the titles I have not read, and start reading them.

Although Among Others is considered adult fiction, it could certainly be read and enjoyed by teens as well. There is not actually much magic in it, if someone who does not usually read fantasy wants to give it a try, but its true audience is those like Mori who love science fiction and fantasy. I have one quibble with a "surprise" plot point, but aside from that I have no real criticisms.

I loved Among Others. I did not want it to end. In fact, I loved it so much I started a new Science Fiction/Fantasy book discussion group at my library.

Among Others follows a young girl, Morweena (aka Mori), after she has run away from her mother, whom Mori says is a mad, evil witch. Mori's twin sister died shortly before in a car accident (caused by their attempt to stop their evil mother from becoming powerful), and Mori is left with a crippled leg. Mori is placed by the government with her father even though she doesn't know him because he abandoned her, her sister, and her mother.

The book is written diary-style from Mori's point of view. Her father's sisters (her Aunts) send her off to boarding school to get rid of her, or so she believes. While at boarding school she mostly reads sci-fi and fantasy books constantly as she can't participate in any physical activities because of her leg.

Up until this point, I was intrigued and interested in the story. Mori can see and communicate with fairies (sort of, because fairies are hard to communicate with), and there are several little gems hinting at the magical power of her mother. But then the book becomes too teen angst-y while simultaneously not believable.

Mor also "writes" extensively about her opinions of the many, many, MANY books she reads without background explanation. If you have not read these same sci fi/fantasy books, or it's been a while since you read them, you'll likely get very bored in these parts. I found myself eventually skipping paragraphs of her "book reviews" to get back to the story line. I was trying to find common threads between the books she was writing about and the story of Among Others, perhaps a theme or allegory, but I couldn't always (or hardly ever) find it.

The ending is relatively satisfying with a greater involvement of magic/fairies, though it feels out of place since most of the book Mori is having trouble even finding fairies and she worries immensely about abusing magic.

I did enjoy the way the author described fairies and magic and how it all works in the real world. That was very imaginative and interesting. However, the book feel a little short for me - too much of everything else, and not enough fantasy. Perhaps I had the wrong expectations.

My twenty-three year old daughter saw me reading this book and asked if I'd taken it from her shelf. No, I didn't know she had it. I'd bought "Among Others" myself because it looked like something I'd like and want to share with my kids. I read a lot of books borrowed from the library, and buy a fair number for my kindle, but actual physical book purchases are rare. It's noteworthy that both my daughter and I found the same book worthy of purchase. (So I was right about sharing it. My fourteen year old son is reading it now.)

She said she liked it well enough, but it was alienating because it was *so* heavily centered on books someone would have read in the 70's. She (my daughter) reads more Kelly Link and less Silverberg. She's read Dune, but isn't into Heinlein. She found the part that was heavily-centered on being a 15 year old science fiction fan in 1979 to be too remote from her experience, but figured that's why it won the Hugo and Nebula; the people who vote for those things WERE science fiction fans in the 1970's.

Thing is, I responded to the same exact thing in the opposite way. I *very* heavily identified with it. I was born in the precise year as the narrator and was 15 the same time she was. Like her, my parents were divorced and like her I read my parent's copies of "Lord of the Rings" and Zenna Henderson stories that I found on their shelves. I changed schools to a new land when I was 14, and always got on well with librarians. This story hit me in a very personal spot.

It's cleverly written. It starts in the Scouring of the Shire, as it were, and just moves forward, trying to integrate the huge thing that happened in the past as the narrator deals with all the stuff you have to figure out when you're 15 (who ARE you?) at the same time as she deals with the death of her identical twin (which twin died, and who IS the remaining one without her sister?). It's written with enormous heart and practicality.

Oh, and it's a story about magical fairies.

I loved it.

Among others has 2 parts.

The reality part of the story is poignant, feeling to this reader like a couple of musicians constantly playing Schubert’s or Mozart’s most melancholic strings in the background.

The heroine’s naiveté and sophistication does not border on becoming irritating, a typical genre malfunction with 15 year old heroes, her diary has a distinct tone of authenticity (look at the school nicknames), and her immense love for science fiction is touching for all of us who have read a great portion of what Mori has read (a double reading of Mission of Gravity is quite a feat!) or even more.

However, the magic part of the story, this reader has found rather poor. Once one has read John Crowley’s magic “Little, Big”, a Hugo Award nominee in 1982 (shame Mori couldn’t have read it, but Jo Walton most probably has) where the bar has been set so high, “Among Others” magic feels a bit on the easy side. Walton’s magic seems to come with an IKEA tag, too easily assembled, hey there’s a fairy, you just have to believe to see it.

Overall, 3 ½ stars for a novel highly recommended for its reality stuff and very easy to read. Ideal for planes, trains and automobiles.

You might find this book in fantasy rack in bookstore. But for me, it is more than a mere fantasy books. Some reviewers classify this book as "magical realism", it rings some truth in my opinion. It is a book about growing up, psychology and the love of sci-fi.

At the face value, this book is a journal of a-15-years-old girl, who happened to study at an elite boarding school. Her background as a Welsh (among other English student) as well as her crippled leg makes her living there "special". Since she was young, she can see fairies and communicates with them. She can also perform magic guided by the fairies.

"Magic" in this book is unique. It is not the kind of magic that you see in common fantasy books. As I said in the beginning, magic in this book looks "real"; sometimes it is not easy to draw a fine line bordering magic and real life. As stated in this book, it is not easy to believe in magic, because it is so easy to disprove it. You can say that it is merely coincidence, or simply science. It is all in the eyes of beholder.

On the other hand, it is also not easy to draw a line whether this book is a fantasy book or a literature (I myself do not like to classify books as literature or not. Books are books. Fictions are fictions.) You can see it as a fantasy book, but you can see it also a psychological book, telling the inner struggle of a teenager trying to cope with her difficult life, a mental mother and loosing a sibling through car accident. Those makes this books so rich that you can read it several times, and it will give you different feel and interpretation. I think, this is why this book won a lot of awards.

As a huge fans of sci-fi and fantasy books, I identify myself a lot with the protagonist character in this book. I get myself completely hooked! So I might be biased in reviewing this book.

I find this book best described as a tribute to all science fiction and fantasy author. (Just like the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a tribute to film making.) And by the end it is her love of books that save her life.

P.S. : By the end of this book, I guarantee you that you are going to have a list of to-read books in science fiction and fantasy genre.

While I'm a big fan of action-packed books, there's something to be said for a laid-back coming-of-age tale full of magic and teen angst. This is especially true when it's littered with homages and references to old science fiction and fantasy books. Jo Walton's Among Others is just such a book, and it's wonderfully gripping, though slow patches mar what is otherwise a great book.

Morwenna Phelps (Mori) is a young Welsh girl in the 1970s. She has been sent off to live with her father and his sisters in London after the death of her own twin sister and some mysterious incident with her mother that left her crippled. Her father sends her off to a boarding school because he can't take her in full time. For Mori, magic and faeries are real, but the school is a place where no magic resides. As a coping mechanism throughout her life, Mori has immersed herself in the world of science fiction and fantasy, a recluse who shies away from most social interactions. She risks everything to use her own magic to form a circle of like-minded friends at the school, which unfortunately draws the attention of her mother for a final confrontation that Mori can no longer avoid.

Among Others is told in a series of Mori's diary entries, another way that Mori deals with the ongoing drudgery of her life. She feels completely out of place among the privileged children at the boarding school, children who don't share her interests and look down on her both for her Welsh accent and her upbringing. Through these diary entries, we see a young teenager struggling to grow up, terrified that her magic may have drastic repercussions in the outside world. Her desire for friends, a normal teen angst, is tinged with sadness when she worries that the boyfriend she eventually gets is only attracted to her because she compelled him to like her.

Mori is a fascinating character, a fully three-dimensional person who struggles to find her way. Sometimes we get frustrated with her before realizing that this is what teenagers do: they make mistakes and have irrational fears and desires. Her passion for science fiction and fantasy makes her even more interesting to read about, even if you are not as well-versed in old SF as she is. Some of the references flew over my head because I haven't read that many classics, but her enthusiasm for them is palpable and almost made me want to go out and get some after finishing Among Others. This book really is an homage to the old days of the genre.

That doesn't mean Walton skimps on the character and plotting. Intriguing characters fill the book, from the other girls in school who have their own issues hiding behind some of their arrogant facades, to the members of the book club in town that Mori joins in order to find a home at the school. They all weave in and out of Mori's orbit as she struggles to find her place in the world.

I also love the ambiguity in the novel. While magic certainly exists as far as Mori is concerned, the reader is never sure. Things that happen in the book could certainly have happened without a magical explanation. Mori is convinced that her aunts are witches who are trying to control her and her father. She's convinced that what happened with her mother was witchcraft, but it could very well be just an extremely troubled woman who couldn't handle her children. It's a great book no matter whether or not magic truly does exist.

The pace of the narrative is slow and easy, almost like a pleasant walk down the garden paths inside Mori's head. This even extends to the climax, which is so sedate that I almost didn't notice that it happened even as it comes up rather abruptly. At times, the pace is almost too slow and threatens reader interest. This doesn't usually last for long, though, until Mori does or say something to capture the reader again.

Among Others is a truly magical novel. If you're a fan of classic fantasy, you have to read this book. Even if you're not, Walton's writing will pull you into Mori's story. You won't be able to help yourself.

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book © Dave Roy, 2011

I'll admit, when I finished reading Among Others, I threw it. Yes, threw it. I threw it to the foot of the bed where I was curled up reading on a Sunday, and sighed with frustration. The pages bent up on themselves and tangled with my comforter. "The [expletive] !?" I exclaimed.

It's not that I hated Among Others. After all, I did managed to slog through all 302 pages without abandoning it for the other fantasy and science fiction in my queue, like Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam series or the Wool omnibus or a shelf-full of other interesting things.

In fact, Among Others *did* started out interestingly enough. In short, Among Others the story of Mori - the surviving half of a set of twins - who finds herself at boarding school in rural England. There's a witchy mother, a lovable but neglectful father figure, boarding school intrigues, and, of course, magic and fairies.

The book is written like a memoir, which I enjoyed; I like being able to see the world from a character's perspective, inner monologue and all. It's written like a journal. Trite? Maybe, but as an avid diarist myself, I can't knock it.

I also dig the way Walton talks about magic, describing her fairies and supernatural events as being "deniable." That is, one doesn't really know if magic is working because it works in mysterious ways. Are things coincidence, or truly the outcome of mystical meddling? One can never know, and that's the beauty of it.

Other than that, Among Others get a 3/5 stars from me, a solid meh rating. It reads like a love letter to Ursula LeGuin or Roger Zelazny, and even this LeGuin lover started to roll her eyes after the fifth or sixth enthusiastic reference to The Dispossessed or Earthsea. The characters are forgettable, Mori herself seems unreasonable or insane (or both?). Not the mention that the climax comes 12 pages or so out from the end and leaves the reader entirely let down, thinking: that's it?

Mori complains of one science fiction author's stories as being entirely too "pat" and unfortunately that is exactly what Among Others is: unconvincing and too neatly wrapped.

Off to paperbackswap.com it goes, hopefully destined for someone half my age who may be able to appreciate it.

I rated the performance higher than the story because I thought that the narrator brought a special depth to this story. While the action of the book covers a relatively short period of time, from September 5, 1979 to February 29, 1980 the narrator does this interesting thing with the first person point of view character's accent. It moves from an educated but fairly broad Welsh accent to boarding school English as she spends time at the expensive English boarding school that her English aunts send her to, then slips back a little more toward the Welsh when she is again with her mother's family, but not as strongly marked.

Probably a pretty obvious progression, but it kind of crept up on me as I listened this book and some narrators/producers might not have bothered. I've tried a couple of Audible books recently that I did not buy because I sampled them and thought the narrator was sub par. I'm keeping an eye out for Kathrine Kellgren in the future.

This is probably a love it or hate it book. I found it easy to identify with the main character who used books as a comfort and guide. I can see where others might find the references, not just to science fiction and fantasy stories, but to historical fiction, Victorian children's fiction, and Plato to be tiresome, but for me they enriched the narrative.

I don't know if this is book I could recommend unless I knew you very well, but I liked the audible version very much for some reasons that had nothing to do with just enjoying the story.

I had this on my TBR list for a while and saw it while browsing through the library’s available eBook selection. I’m glad I decided to give it a go because I am really surprised by how much I enjoyed it! This is a very different kind of coming-of-age story that has magic and the love of books woven tenderly into the pages. I’m only sad that I haven’t had the time to really dive into science fiction like the author herself has. I think I would have appreciated the book references more if I had read them myself, but you don’t have to be a science fiction fan to be a fan of the main character, Mori. The long list of authors and book titles within the story will keep me busy for quite some time though =)

The book blurb does a fine job of giving you a nice summary of what Among Others is about so I won’t bore you with my own synopsis. If the blurb isn’t enough to grab your attention than maybe my opinion will help. I didn’t have much expectation going into this novel. My science fiction/fantasy knowledge is still in the “baby-making” stage and I had never picked up anything by Jo Walton, so really all I had was the blurb to go on. But shortly after starting the book I noticed that I had never read anything that flowed quite like Mori’s story. It’s written in journal-like passages, which is nothing new, but I discovered that the story telling was captivating. Mori herself is an odd and unique character that I immediately liked without really understand why. And of course by the end of the story I still couldn’t quite get why I liked Mori so much but I didn’t really give a hoot.

I could see and even feel the love of science fiction, and reading in general, that the author has. That was one of THE best aspects of the novel for me. The way books become companions for many of us is beautiful to read about especially for a character as young as Mori. I discovered my love for reading a little later than I would have liked and I envy Mori’s passion for books. I think I was expecting something more on the fantastical side when it came to the use of magic but what surprised me is that I enjoyed the subtle way Mori’s magic became an integral part of the story. This restrained usage, I think, added more by making Mori’s life and the things she was facing stand out more. There were many occasions Mori herself questioned whether the things happening were coincidence, fate, or had something to do with her magic. It really made me think outside of the box and I quite liked the experience.

I know I’ll be reading more my Jo Walton. I’m also excited to start on some of these well known authors (that of course I know nothing about) that were so much a part of Mori and her story.

To decide whether or not to read this book, answer this question: do you want to read about a 15 year old girl reading science fiction?

In my case, the answer is no. Even if I did adore classic SF from the mid-20th century, I don't think I would have liked this book. It's a diary format, covering a year of a young Welsh girl's life at a drab English boarding school. Mori's recovering from trauma--her sister is dead and her mom is evil and the reason for these facts has something to do with fairies, but it's all very vague. Her recovery is helped by reading gobs and gobs of SF, which she discusses in her journals.

It's certainly very realistic. Journaling this way seems like something a precocious 15 year old girl would do, existence of fairies or not. But realistic doesn't always make for enjoyable reading. The bits I was interested in were glossed over, probably because Mori used her diary as a therapeutic outlet and wanted to avoid retelling the exciting but troublesome magical problems. As a reader of the diary, however, I feel gypped after slogging through pages of expository writing on SF books only for a rare unexplained mention of magic/death/evil. The actual exciting events are told in the past tense without pizazz or, even worse, they're not recounted at all, merely tantalizingly alluded to.

The most interesting part of Among Others concerns the verisimilitude of it all. The common reading seems to be 1. magic exists 2. all these supernatural events did truly occur. But the diary format allows Mori to edit. Who knows how factual her account really is? Mori draws some odd conclusions about seemingly innocuous things, and I'm tempted to read the book as the babblings of a lunatic girl pushed toward the fantastical after being punished by the realistic.

Among Others is the first contender I've read for the upcoming 2012 Hugo Awards. And I'll be very surprised if it doesn't end up getting my top vote.

The main character, Morwenna, is a Welsh girl growing up in the year of 1979-1980, and has been sent away to boarding school in England. She's exceptionally bright for her age, consumes a diet of sci-fi and fantasy novels on a near-daily basis, and doesn't make friends easily. She was in an accident the previous year, often requiring a cane to walk, and has little patience for the immature antics and social maneuverings of her classmates and peers.

Also, she can perform magic and talks to the fairies.

There is so much that I loved about this novel. The diary-entry form gives us a great glimpse into Mor's head, and the fact that she eschews most social activities really makes believable the idea that she could be writing so much (ie, the general credence-breaking conceit in most epistolary novels). And amongst the boarding school life, and the larger plot - regarding the fairies, her dead twin sister, and her literal witch of a mother - we find Mor write about the novels she's reading. A LOT. Of course, since these are the novels that the majority of this book's readership will have had at least some familiarity with, this is actually a canny move on the part of the author to get us to bond with the character pretty darn quick. Don't be surprised if you finish this novel with a humongous list of classic sci-fi that you yourself want to go and seek out!

What makes this novel even more satisfying, though, is the fact that its form casts Mor herself as something of a potentially unreliable narrator. During the bulk of the story I found myself wondering: Do I take this at face value? Or is all this talk about magic and fairies a signifier that the girl is just plain bonkers? Will this big bad evil witch mother even show up, or just remain in the distance as a haunted, hated trauma?

By the very nature of the story itself - boarding school life - it's not a very plot-heavy novel. But plot isn't at all absent, and it's very very character-driven, and never for a single minute was I bored by the story. In fact, I pretty much loved the novel, and the character, from beginning to end.

Among Others has already won the Nebula Award. It deserves the Hugo as well.

I really enjoyed the story in this book. Fifteen year old Morwenna, wounded in the accident that took her twin, can see fairies and knows that magic is real and subtle. Her mother is trying to use her own knowledge of magic to gain power. Mor's sent to live with the father she's never met, and his wealthy sisters, who send her to boarding school. Magic is present throughout, but the story proceeds as a series of diary entries mostly about her school days and a science fiction book club where she finally finds connection. The hard part about reading this is that the author assumes you've read all of the sci-fi books she has. I've read a lot of them, but I still made good use of my kindle's search feature to help me get all of the references. While this stays true to a diary entry (certainly you wouldn't explain a reference to yourself), it can leave the reader floundering. I would have given it three and a half stars, but couldn't. Went with four because it is worth reading.

I'm surprised this won the Hugo. AMONG OTHERS is the journal of a school-aged girl who knows magic and experienced a traumatic magical past. But that's not what this book is about. Basically, this book chronicles a non-eventful period - six months, a year? - in a girl's life AFTER she has defeated evil.

The writing is beautiful. I wish I could write like this. Walton has a master command of the English language. She brings Mori to life. This might be enough for you. It's obviously enough for many; it won the Hugo after all. But not much happens. Mori likes to read Sci Fi and Fantasy. She lives in the library. She excels in school. Her lame leg troubles her. She has a crush on the boy in the book club. It's all very believable and the book's voice is enjoyable, but it's not enough for me. I want something to happen. I want plot. It's missing here and it's a bit of a disappointment. If, like me, you want a true-to-life protagonist, but one who does something, then pass on AMONG OTHERS.

Morwenna is an odd girl. At least that's how she perceives herself. And it may very well be true since the other girls at the English boarding school have confirmed the points against her: she reads endless stacks of SF, she uses a cane as the result of a lame leg, she's from Wales so doesn't have a posh accent, and her mother is a witch.

This oddity means that the girls leave her alone, which is fine with Mor, but it also leaves her lonely. And she has many reasons to feel lonely. Her parents divorced when she was young, so she barely knows the father just recently come into her life. She ran away from home to get away from her evil mother, leaving behind a beloved grandfather. And her twin sister died mere months ago.

It's 1979 and 15-year-old Mor's diary is the subject of AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton. It only covers a few months, recounting the struggle of a young girl trying to simply get on with her life in the aftermath of the death of her twin sister. As a result of it being only a slice of Mor's life, there isn't a definite plot, no real climax or conclusion, and it just sort of ends in what feels like the middle of the story. But this novel is less about the story and more about how Mor's love affair with books helps her to cope.

AMONG OTHERS is a nostalgic-feeling character study, told in tight and delightful prose. Mor is a girl who understands her own limitations, as well as her strengths. She is terrible at math and sports, but she loves reading--specifically SF. It's possible that people who didn't read fantasy and sci-fi growing up may not 'get' this book. I discovered SF early, and inhaled it, much like Mor did, and it was fun to see her references of novels and authors. Her love of books is infectious, you feel her excitement about the visits to the library or bookstore, the joy of reading the strange and unusual, and about finding others who love SF the same way she does.

But there may be a reason why Mor loves SF so much: she knows magic. Born and raised in Wales, Mor was a friend to the local fairies, and her own mother is a witch. But magic scares Mor, and for good reason. While she understands how to do magic, she also understands its dangers. About magic Mor says that "You can almost always find chains of coincidence to disprove magic. That's because it doesn't happen the way it does in books.... It's like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it was because someone on an aeroplane had dropped a rose at just the right time for it to land on your hand. There was a real person and a real aeroplane and real rose, but that doesn't mean the reason you have the rose in your hand isn't because you did the magic...you can dismiss all of it if you have a sceptical turn of mind because there always is a sensible explanation. It always works through things in the real world, and it's always deniable" (pg 40). But what kind of magical compulsion was necessary to force the pilot into that aeroplane just so she could magic a rose? Even though it can be explained away does that make magic real? Mor seems to think so.

From the beginning we know that Mor's sister is dead, but we don't know why. The events leading to Mor's injury, her sister's death, and Mor running away from home are all revealed along the way, leaving you to imagine what a story that would have been.

It's the sense of wonder--magic, the heft of a new book, finding a kindred spirit--that makes AMONG OTHERS a lovely story. Despite the book's brevity, it's an engaging and nostalgic look at what it means to grow up loving books.

**This review was posted on Elitist Book Reviews. For more reviews and interviews stop by our blog.**

This is a coming of age story about a 15 year old Welsh girl, set in 1979. The book is written as Morwena's journal entires. Morwena is a big Sci-fi fan, reads multiple Sci-Fi books per day, belongs to a Sci-Fi book club, and refernces scores of Sci-Fi books in her journal. One of the things they debate at the Sci-Fi club is whether particular books are Sci-Fi or Fantasy, with Fantasy being seen less favorably. This debate is somewhat ironic since the book is really set in the Fantasy genre (magic & fairies) rather than Sci-Fi genre.

The book could be considered a light version of "Jonathon Strange & Mr. Morrell" or the Harry Potter series. In fact, Morwena's closest literary cousin may be Harry Potter's Hermione Granger. Like Hermione, Morwena feels out of place at boarding school, being of a different social class, and being more mature and intellectual than her classmates. If you wish that Hermione Granger had her own book where instead of going to Hogwarts she went to an all girls Muggle Boarding School, this book is for you.

At first I enjoyed the many references to classic Sci-Fi authors and books, but after a while it became obnoxious. Even though I have read most of the authors mentioned, the references to so many books all written before 1980, as if they were current cultural references which everyone would get, was a little much for me. Even though I have read most of the authors referenced, and maybe half the books, I last read some of them 20 or 30 years ago , and I did not always get the intended references. I fear though, that it was this bibliography of books and the fawning nature in which they were referenced, which earned the books its Nebula & Hugo awards.

If you like a Masterpiece Theater approach - quality and depth delivered at a relatively slow pace - you'll really like this book. It also helps if you love SF and fantasy - I probably got half the references and loved it when I did. I kept thinking "wow, the pace is kinda slow" but I also found myself grabbing even a few minutes to continue to read. As someone who identifies with the "I must escape my evil mother" theme, I like the main character's approach - she has an innate sense of how to keep what's good about what she knows and has learned, and how to be very careful at the skills she has that are - as her mother notes - very much like her mother's skills. I would recommend this book if you like LeGuin - it delivers some of the same things I find so satisfying in her books.

This is a hard book to describe. Mainly it's a book about growing up and feeling like you are different from everyone else. There is a little bit of magic tossed in with the story that added another layer to it. It is also a homage to science fiction books. I had not read a lot of what was written but now I definitely have to try Zelazney. It is told in first person narrative as a diary written by Mori. This worked well as I was able to really get to know her. It was very easy to relate to her feelings of isolation and feeling like no one relates to her. I think everyone has felt like that at one time, especially as teenagers. It was also easy to relate to her book obsessions. It was interesting to watch her grow in the book. Since it is written like a diary, you mainly see this in how her relationships with other change. I liked the setting and felt that it really added to the overall feel of the book. It is definitely not an action packed story but it still moved at a good pace. I liked this book a lot, it has a very different feel to it from a lot of the books that I have read lately. Though this might not be for everyone it is definitely worth checking out.

I was quite looking forward to this book, found the sample chapter intriguing, and finally got it. It is worth reading--especially if you can get it from the library--but I wished it had been better plotted.

The novel is in journal form from the point of view of a young girl who has survived a terrible accident, and is now in boarding school. There are fantasy elements--fairies, a mother who may or may not be a "witch" practicing coercive magic--but it is more like a coming of age novel of a young girl who reads a lot of science fiction. Personally, I loved all the sci-fi references, and the book was fun just to see how many of the sci-fi allusions I got and how many of the books I'd read (answer: less then I expected, given that I'm decently well read in the genre). It is also a well written novel, and the main character is engaging.

However, the fantasy elements of the story didn't mesh as well as I would have liked. I very much enjoyed them, and I really enjoyed the main character's musings on what magic is. I even liked the ways in which reality is somewhat unclear here: are the fairies real? Is the mother really practicing magic, or is she just a terrible mother? Those elements were intriguing.

The problem is that the novel opens and closes with a major plot line regarding the accident the main character was in that killed her twin, and that plot line is intriguing, but not well developed. We never actually see much of the mother, and the end of the novel tries to tie everything up very quickly in very few pages and it felt rushed, and I never did understand if the mother had been behind the accident or not, or what was going on with that plot line. There were a few too many neat coincidences at the end, too, ironic given how the narrator rejects the coincidences in Thomas Hardy (perhaps that was the point? if so it wasn't clear).

All in all, I enjoyed the book, but found the ending rushed and disappointing.

I am old enough to remember Amazing Stories and my ideal Science Fiction is something like Andy Weir’s The Martian that has to be read with a calculator handy. I have thought that Hugo Gernsback must be spinning in his grave at the awards given in his name for recent years. I can only imagine his reaction to FAIRIES! I usually avoid Fantasy as a genre but, when I saw that Among Others had won both the Hugo and the Nebula, I decided to give it a try.
The story is told by the journal of Mori, a 15-year-old Welsh science fiction and fantasy fan. She and her twin sister supposedly have magical powers and stopped their witch mother from casting some disastrous spell but presumably related to her reaction, they suffered an accident in which her sister was killed, Mori crippled and their mother driven insane. Mori is sent to England to live with her father who sends her to a girls' boarding school, which she hates. Because she can do her schoolwork quickly and her injury prevents her from participating in sports, she spends time reading SF in the school library and the local public library. Throughout her diary she records her and the other characters' reactions to these books with as much interest as any other events of her life. And that’s about it! Nothing happens, no characters are developed enough to be interesting. Mori reads books and comments on them. I have actually ordered a couple that she liked. Perhaps that might have made the time I spent reading this … I’m looking for the right adjective here … drab and pointless book worthwhile.
Let me offer an alternative interpretation of this book: Mori is a deluded and unreliable narrator and all the “magical” events, fairies and witches are figments of her imagination. Read in this light it is a psychological study and I don’t have to admit that I read a ‘Fantasy.’

There's been a lot of buzz about this book, which is currently on the Nebula shortlist. That acclaim is deserved.

This is my first book by Walton, and it won't be the last. The book is an almost-contemporary fantasy, set in 1979-1980 in England and Wales. It's well grounded in that era, but the basic elements are timeless and defy setting. Mori is left crippled and grieving after the loss of her twin sister. She's taken away from rural Wales, where magic and fairies were a common part of her life, and dropped into a snobby boarding school. This is the opposite of the cliche of young adult books, where the girl goes off to the school and finds magic there.

Every character here feels real, from her aloof father to her boarding school friends to her Grampar. I adored her relationship with her father and his father. While this book could never be classified as a romance, it does have romance in it and it's beautifully done. There's nothing mushy about it. It feels honest and real. Magic doesn't have a heavy presence in the book. It doesn't need it. The real magic here is the magic of books, as shown through Mori's obsession with science fiction and fantasy. (I experienced a meta moment as I was reading World of Ptavvs by Larry Niven at the same time as Mori read it.)

There's a wonderful quote right near the end: "If you love books enough, books will love you back." That really sums up Among Others. It feels cozy and comfortable, like I stepped into Mori's life with all its beauty and awfulness, and that included her utter delight in books.

(Reviewed by RLC) This is a sweet book. That is not damning with faint phrase. I just mean that the story made me smile, inside and out. I was surprised that I enjoyed the diary format. I tend to prefer the more standard approach. However, the diary entries fully show and support the internal turmoil of an outsider teen. I also enjoyed the reference to numerous SF novels that I read many years ago. The character's reactions to her body's changes were sweet (there is that word again) and funny. Her thoughts regarding sex were a bit surprising but refreshing.
I did have a problem with the ending. Things just seemed to stop. I was fully expecting to find a sequel on the store.

If you're a book lover, if you've ever looked at life through the prism of fiction, no matter what genre, if you've ever walked home from the library with an armful of books - you must read Among Others by Jo Walton.

Next to Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Among Others is one of the most quotable books about literature I've ever read. 75% of my Goodreads Quotations gidget is from this book:

"Interlibrary loans are a wonder of the world and a glory of civilization."

"Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts."

"It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books."

As you might be able to glean from the above, the narrator of Among Others, Morwenna or Mori, for short, is a great reader, an outsider who finds refuge in fantasy and science fiction books. Mori is one of the more refreshing voices I've ever encountered mostly because she reminds me of the way I used to look at the world as a child (and the way I sometimes look at it now): through books. Not only is the narrative full of references to authors and novels and fictional characters, but Mori approaches each unknown experience by comparing it a something that happened in a book.

Because of her great love of sci-fi and fantasy and imaginative perspective, the matter-of-fact references to dark magic, witches and fairies in Mori's real world at first seemed as if she perhaps had too much imagination; that maybe in order to deal with the trauma of her twin's death and overwhelming anger at her mother, Mori created a fantasy world of her own. I was never sure one way or another for the first half but in the second half, the momentum was in full force, culminating in a spectacular climax worthy of the genre Mori so idealizes.

The magic elements in Among Others is mostly subdued and depicted by Mori, despite her love of the fantasy genre, in a matter-of-fact way, as natural as leaves and stones and shadows. She laments that real magic doesn't work the way it does in books. The fairies she encounters, for instance, are nothing like the ones in Tolkien; although for lack of anything better to call the one male fairy she befriends, she names him Glorfindel in her head.

The one thing I was uncomfortable with was a scene involving Mori's dad which dealt with a very troubling matter. In typical fashion, Mori starts examining it via novels she's read: I don't like it, but perhaps it's okay in some situations because it happened in this book - kind of reasoning. It seemed to take her biblio-minded perspective to an unhealthy extreme.

Otherwise - a very solid recommendation from me. You don't have to like science fiction or fantasy to love Among Others by Jo Walton, but if you've ever said, "That's like something out of a book" or believe in the magic of books, this one's for you

This story through the medium of the Audible recording by Kathrine Kellgren is transporting. Magical! In an ordinary reality. I cannot fathom the negative reviews. Perhaps those readers don't find the mind and life of a strange Welsh girl very interesting. There's a strong tension between a life where magic is real and normal, and a new life in a world where magic is subdued, or perhaps doesn't exist. It's a lovely sad, sometimes humorous, always quirky autobiographical tale of an unusual terribly smart young Welsh girl who is trying to find her way in another world. I found myself wishing I could meet her and know her.

I normally don't include basic plot summaries or premises in my reviews - I assume anyone reading my review is either capable enough to find it or has already had it drilled into them - but with "Among Others", providing this would be useless. The mental image you might form from the premise of this book is very different to what you'll find inside.

This is a character book, not a plot book. There's still a story here, but it's very subtle and complex. If you prefer a structured plot, you'll probably have to look elsewhere. As Mori, the central character, notes early on, this story isn't very simple.

What we get is a deep character study of a 15 year old girl who's already had to make adult decisions. This isn't a coming of age story. It's about a teenage girl trying to find her way in a complex world, and trying to find a place where she can fit in. We get alot of information about Mori in an understated, subtle way. The characterisation is superb, and it helps that Mori is a sensible, practical, intuitive, and thoughtful teenager. And that's selling her short - there much more to her than that.

This book tackles alot of issues and themes. I don't want to type them out and spoil the book for anyone, but they all mostly relate to the central theme of the book: you're a 15 year old girl reaching for adulthood, and among others; so now what happens?

The magic here made sense most of the time, and I followed it easily. In fact I followed pretty much everything that happened here easily; there was hardly anything that didn't immediately make sense. The only problem I had with the book was the climax, during the last 10-20 pages. There I wasn't totally clear on what was going on, and had to spend some time trying to figure it out. Where-as in other parts of the book I understand precisely what was happening - despite Walton tackling some really slippery concepts, which, to her credit, she gets right the rest of the time - I didn't get it here.

Another problem I had was with the lack of action throughout most of the book. When there were action scenes, I felt they were all superb, and fully engaged me. The rest of the time the book is merely great, and I was less engaged than I suppose I should have been. This doesn't detract from the book, it's purely personal preference.

This is a really good book, and the writing is fantastic. Pretty much everything is handled expertly by Walton - I can't put into words how superb her characterisation and everything to do with it is. But it didn't really compel me, and when there was something which did really grab me it never lasted. But it's still brill.

4/5

15 year old Mor had a twin sister and a family. Now her twin is gone. She's been uprooted from her beloved Welsh valley and sent to a proper English girls school by her estranged father and her strange maiden aunts. Weird and enchanting, Among Others is told through Mor's diary, a spell-binding story that never quite reveals all its secrets. Does Mor really communicate with the Little People, or is she as crazy as her wild mother?

This is a radiant, other-worldly tale for anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of a fantastic book. If you'd love to believe in fairies, you will find magic in these pages.

One of those books that could go on forever. I found myself a little disappointed when it ended. Not because of the ending, but because I wanted it to continue. Not much happened plot-wise, but I actually want to read more science fiction now! I'd definitely read something else by the same author.

This book is like reading a meandering, narcissistic blog written by a twelve year old. Seriously, I don't know how it made it past the publisher. I have attempted to sit down and read it on a number of occasions, but literally cannot focus for more than a few minutes. It is seriously boring, like reading a Justin Cronin novel, but worse as it is all written in the form of a journal entry.

Among Others (2010) is a standalone Fantasy novel. This volume is set in Wales and England starting in 1975.

In this novel, Morwenna Markova is a Welsh girl with an English father. She was born as a twin of Morganna, who is now dead. Mor has an extensive family on her mother's side, but knows little about her father's family.

Charles Bartley is the father of Anthea, Dorothy and Frederica. He went off to war and was lost. Later his wife married Sam. Then Charles came back from the war and was divorced from his wife.

Sam Markova is a Polish Jew. During the war, he married the widow of Charles and they had Daniel. After his wife divorced Charles, they had three daughters.

Daniel Markova is the son of Sam. He married Elizabeth Phelps and had the twins. Two years later, he abandoned Liz and the girls and fled to the Old Hall.

Luke Phelps is the father of Liz and the grandfather of the twins. Grandpar and his family live in Southern Wales.

In this story, Morwenna and Morganna play with fairies. The fairies speak Welsh, but never in a straight forth manner. Their statements have to be evaluated and converted into normal language.

They have no names for places or each other and do not call themselves fairies. Yet the twins assign names to the fairies and the ruins where they play. They often use names out of the Lord of the Rings.

The so-called fairies are limited in their actions, so they have the twins carry things. They ask the twins to drop flowers in a contaminated pool of water at a plant. The twins sneak in and throw the flowers into the pool. The next day, the news of the plant closing appears in the papers.

Four years later, Morganna is dead and Morwenna is crippled. She has fled from Liz and lives in a group home for a while. Then Social Services finds her father and ships her to him despite protests.

Daniel seems somewhat paternal and also likes science fiction and fantasy. His sisters, however, are determined to send Mor away to school. They buy her clothes and school supplies and Daniel drops her off at Arlinghurst.

The school is everything Mor had dreaded. The girls are uppity and the fool is appalling. They try to dictate her schedule, but it is obvious that she cannot participate is the physical activities program. Mor and Daniel also negotiate changes to allow her to take chemistry, history and Latin.

Mor finds Welsh, Irish and Jewish students are outcasts. She tells the students that her mother is a witch and she is mostly left alone. But the students do call her names.

Mor finds the school library and finds some SF and Fantasy works that she has not read. The librarian is friendly and orders a few books for her. She spends most mornings there with a book or two.

Later, Mor discovers the town library. The male librarian says that she needs permissions to check out books. After obtaining the necessary permits, Mor soon finds that she can get books through the interlibrary loans program.

Mor also find bookstores in town and other places that she visits. She starts catching up on books that she has missed. She also finds new releases from her favorite authors.

Mor feels the spirit of her mother visiting her in the dorm. She repels the malignant spirit and starts placing wards in the windows. Finally, she works a major magic to ward the place.

She also tries to draw a karass to herself. The next day, she learns of the SF/Fantasy Book Club meeting on Tuesday evenings at the town library. She needs more permits to join, but the school librarian escorts her to the next meeting.

This tale follows Mor through the pleasures and annoyances of the school, the joys of the book club, and the pains of her injuries. She uses her readings to understand the magics around her and the ethics of imposing her will on other people. Her diary lists the books that she reads and comments on their influences on her.

Mor misses her family and her twin sister. She isn't sure about her father, but he seems to like her. She definitely wants to avoid her mother.

The author is writing about a time at least twenty years after my teenage years. I was meeting the same books as Mor, but with a generation more knowledge in speculative fiction. I had a different opinion of some of the authors that she really liked, but we agreed more often than not.

This novel does not have a sequel. However, the discussion of SF/F books continues in What Makes This Book So Great

Highly recommended for Walton fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of fairies, magic, and a bit of romance. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

Among Others
Jo Walton
Tor Books
January 18th, 2011
eBook
360 pages (Portrait View)
ISBN-13: 978-07653-2153-4

It's not often I get excited about an urban fantasy novel featuring reluctant Fairies, of all things, but Jo Walton's Among Others gives me good reason to be thrilled. The story evolves around fifteen year old Morwenna Phelps, Mori to her friends, who is an avid Science Fiction fan(atic) and a voracious reader. After a terrible car accident, Mori is farmed out by her family to her long-absent father and is forced, under protest and duress, to attend a prestigious, all-girl private high school. To make matters worse her estranged mother, who she believes is a witch, appears to be hatching a plot to gain control over the most powerful of all magic. Did I mention that Mori can see and speak to Fairies and ghosts? And, as hard as that is to believe, it gets even better as the story develops.

We are shown, through first person narrative in the form of diary entries, Mori's experiences at the private prep-school where she is the ultimate outsider. New to the school, disabled in the car accident, and incredibly smart and well-read for her age Mori is shunned by the popular kids and searches for friendship among the other outcasts. The back-story, hinted at in the prologue, is slowly revealed as the story unfolds. We discover that Mori's twin sister died in the car accident that disabled her and that she believes her mother is an evil witch who was responsible for the accident and is now prepping to become an all-powerful magical queen. Much of the story is revealed during dialogue between Mori, her outcast school friends, and members of the book club she's found at the local library where she happily settles in among other like-minded thinkers who also happen to be Science Fiction fans.

Among Others is a perfectly paced, wonderfully crafted and imaginative tale that should appeal to the casual reader as well as to the genre specific fantasy reader. It has all the elements great stories need to thrive; identifiable characters, a unique plot, a dark layer that occasionally rises to the surface, engrossing dialogue, and an underlying mystery that is slowly exposed as the story reaches its climax. Add to that the many references to works by some of the greatest Science Fiction writers that have ever put pen to paper and you have a highly entertaining novel.

On a personal note I'd like to add that I identified closely with this story as soon as the main character began discussing the Science Fiction books that she'd read. Her list included a veritable Who's Who of the most prominent Science Fiction authors of the last seventy five years. Robert Silverberg, Ursula le Guin, J. R. R Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Robert Heinlein, Roger Zelazny, Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey, Samuel R. Delaney, and many others are mentioned by name as are the titles of their most prominent works. Ms. Walton, who obviously knows and understands the subject matter, excels at weaving the themes and messages from those books into Among Others. (What a unique and novel idea. I secretly wish I'd thought of it.) One of the most fascinating things about this book is that the main characters' list of books and authors is suspiciously familiar to me. Jo Walton's Science Fiction reading list is so similar to mine, in fact, that I think she must have travelled back in time to peak over my shoulder when I was developing it. Since most of the story takes place in 1979, when I was 20, there's no wonder our lists match so closely.

I've read somewhere that Among Others is semi-autobiographical and as an avid long-time Science Fiction fan myself I see no reason to dispute that. It makes perfect sense and I love the way many of the themes from classic Science Fiction stories were integrated into this story. There is a lesson to be learned here; we are what we read. I for one, wish everyone could devour Among Others and the classic Science Fiction novels mentioned in it. The world would be a much better place for it. That Jo Walton has a gift for language and an incredible imagination goes without saying but it is her unusual voice, her grasp of timing, and the images she paints with her words that are most memorable to me. Her dialogue is always interesting, her descriptions of scenes and events compelling, and her plot, sub-plots, and characters are tightly woven, subtly human in every respect, and whole.

I recommended Among Others for those who enjoy a little Fairy dust sprinkled on their stories, Urban Fantasy enthusiasts, Science Fiction fans (and fanatics), those who love a good story, YA followers, aficionados of good literature, young adults, old adults, and anyone with an uncommonly good reading sense.

5 ½ out of 5 stars

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin

I listened to the audio of this book, which is well-read. But, the novel itself leaves me constantly wishing there was more to it. I'm old enough to have actually read most of the books referred to...but, honestly, it comes across as bragging in this book. I agree with other reviewers who say this might have been different if there was some point to it. There's way too much of it to simply be character-building material. It even has made me wonder if one of the reasons it won the Nebula was because all those other authors thought maybe sales of their own books would increase as a result. I know that sounds like a somewhat cynical thing to say...but the novel just doesn't seem to match up to the quality of the vast majority of previous Nebula winners. There's little depth to it. The plot, such as it is, completely lacks the complexity of a great novel. The language is wonderful...to be sure. But, where is the truly transformative experience? At what point does life *force* the narrator to grow up? I finally had to stop listening and read a synopsis of the novel, to see if something was actually going to happen...or if the stream of consciousness was simply going to continue. It's the latter...alas! It's a good idea...it *could* have been something more. So, now...I wonder...why on earth did it win the Hugo?

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about Among Others. On one hand, it's a unflinchingly honest account of a young, troubled girl's life. It's the story of the changes that occur in a brief, but important period in her life. On the other, she has a mother who deals in "bad magic" and she sees fairies. Morwenna herself does a small bit of magic. If this had been simply a coming-of-age story or a story about magic, I think I could have been a little more on board with Among Others. The two worlds just didn't seem to mesh well, in my opinion.

I was slightly thrown off course from the very beginning of the book. The opening gave a vague sense of what had happened to lead Morwenna to her circumstances, but I felt that I needed more to be invested. For at least the first half of the story, you know her mom is evil and her sister has died, but the story-telling was very cryptic. I suppose maybe that was to give Morwenna a chance to be ready to tell her story, which is fine. But I needed more to go on.

While I wasn't bowled over by the bulk of the story, one aspect really struck me. Among Others, above all else, is a story about the magic and transformative power of books. A young girl, damaged by a crazy mother, sent away to school, seeks refuge in books. They lead her to friendship, peace and happiness. In that respect, Among Others is a treat for those who have an enormous love of books. That in itself made it a worthwhile read for me.

Favorite Quote ~

"It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books."

*I received a copy of this book from Tor Publishing, in exchange for an honest review.*

I have to admit that I'm at a bit of a loss on how to review this book.

On the one hand...
I can report that it is very readable. Part of this is due to the structure: written in the 1st person as a diary, the chapters (days in the diary) are only a couple pages, so it's always possible to read "just one more chapter" in a few minutes. But obviously the reader would have to want to read one more chapter, and I think it's fair to say that I found it difficult to put the book down. 15-year-old Morwenna Phelps had to flee Wales and her abusive mother to live in England with a father she'd never met and ends up in a boarding school where she is one of the three social outcasts (along with the Irish Girl and the Jewish Girl). Throughout her life, she has used escape into science fiction books as a means of coping, and continues to do so in her new situation. She eventually finds a book club, a sympathetic librarian, and others with whom to share her love. Incidentally, she can see fairies and practice real magic. Superficially, it's a science fiction mash-up with Harry Potter-esque fantasy thrown in. In detail, it's more internal than a typical science fiction or fantasy book, and I think that honesty is what makes it so compelling.

On the other hand....
Because of an accident, Morwenna has a bad leg, and consequently has a lot of extra time to read (during gym class, house hockey league, etc.). She reads voraciously and impossibly quickly (5-10 books a week, and if many are short, none of them are lightweight in ideas!). She notes questions and comments about specific books and compares topics between books by the same author and compares authors with each other on similar topics. As noted by other reviewers, you (assuming you are a "typical" reader) will not have read most of these books. Oh, you should know the authors if you know anything about science fiction - if the names Brunner, Delany, Zelazny, McCaffrey, and Heinlein mean nothing to you, do not attempt this book! If you've read at least one or two from each of these authors, which you'd have to if you were working your way through the Hugo and/or Nebula winners for example, I think you'll be able to follow along well enough. In terms of actual story points, she tends to lean towards Heinlein the most, of whom I've read almost everything, so I never felt I was foundering in a sea of ignorance. Unlike when reading, for example, Delany.

I bring up Delany and Zelazny because they are similar in style but opposites in tone. Delany seems to delight in proving how clever he is and if the reader can't keep up, well, s/he must be an ignorant dufus not worth Delany's time. On the other hand, Zelazny also tends to the obscure but it feels he wants to help you see your way into a broader world. My primary problem with this book is that I can't decide which one better describes Jo Walton - is she calling me a moron (like Delany) or trying to point me to new vistas (like Zelazny)? Morwenna is clearly the former - pompous, self-sure, and intellectually vain as only a teenager can be. In addition, Morwenna (and therefore Walton?) is very dismissive of hard science fiction (calling it souless and styleless) - my favourite author, Arthur C. Clarke, feels her scorn more than once.

Others have complained that the book has a rushed ending, or that nothing much happens, or that it feels as if we are dropped into the middle of a story and that we're missing the beginning. All of these are true, but none are relevant because the book is not about what it's about but rather how it is about it. Actually, I quite like the ending - it's almost Heinlein-esque in the way it is sprung on you. If we're going to have nitpicking complaints, mine would have to be centred on the "magic is real" aspects of the book. I think the book would have been more compelling if it was left as an open question whether the magic (and the faeries) were real or simply another part of Mori's coping mechanism. Certainly it would have made for a lively debate topic at a sci fi book club!

If the quality of the book is measured by how fast you read it, this is a 5-star book. I must report that really did enjoy reading it. I'm not so sure that I liked it, because I was never sure that Walton was not laughing at me for my ignorance. I also can think of very few people to whom I could recommend the book, and most I would tell to avoid it. So, a perhaps unfair compromise of 4 out of 5 stars, when it deserves both a 5-star rating and a 2-star rating simultaneously.

I really loved this book.

I find it great that it is a fantasy story in which the heroin loves SF. Really made me want to read (or read again) all those SF classics!

The magic in the book is depicted in a very poetic way ; actually the whole atmosphere of the book is kind of poetic, and made me think of Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean At The End Of The Lane" (which I loved, too).

Also, I read it all in one go, on a lazy Sunday, and it is the kind of story that totally frees you of the guilt of doing nothing but reading :)

Nothing really happens. The sub-plots never convincingly coalesce; the presence or absence of fairies makes no difference; the entire story boils down to a mother-daughter conflict that ends predictably.

Basically, the author took a list of classic SF stories and their authors' names and wound it into a plodding, exposition-filled bore fest. The name dropping was nauseating. The only justification I can imagine for this book winning the Hugo was that it's basically one long advertisement for classic SciFi.

Not my usual choice of reading, but the rich descriptive phrases and references to books and authors I've either read or know about made it a deeper read than I expected.

I used to be, as a child, very much a fairy follower and this book brought me back to those roots. There is magic in life and living and this is one wonderful.reminder.

Kids nowadays have it easy. If you're into fantasy, there's a good chance that the books you like have a devoted following and a few dedicated web sites. There may be movie franchises and/or an HBO series about them. You can buy Team Jacob/Team Edward shirts, Harry Potter glasses and A Game of Thrones calendars. There may be book release parties, even people sleeping in front of the bookstore when the next book is due out. There's GoodReads, Shelfari and Librarything, and even if you're not on one of those sites, it's never been easier to connect with other fans and with the authors themselves.

Growing up in the seventies, it was considerably harder to meet like-minded readers or even just find out about the existence of books you might want to read: as unreliable as the store release dates can be, they're at least an indication that the author is a) still alive and b) working on the next book in the series. Back then, all you had were the order forms in the back of paperbacks and whatever happened to be stocked in your local library or bookstore. Being a budding SFF fan was a lot more work back then than it is nowadays.

Take Morwenna, the main character of Jo Walton's excellent new novel Among Others. Her main passion in life -- aside from magic -- is reading science fiction and fantasy. She lives her life thinking about Ursula K. Le Guin, Roger Zelazny and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. When she runs away from home -- after successfully preventing her mother's attempt to gain dark magical powers but in the process becoming crippled and losing her twin sister -- one of her main concerns is picking the right books to take along. Whatever else is going on in her strange, lonely life, the early masterworks of science fiction and fantasy are always there for her, and if one famous saying guides her, it might be the famous Erasmus quote: "When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes."

Among Others is essentially the diary of one significant stage of Morwenna's life: after running away, her custody is assigned to her previously absentee father, but because he lives with (and is controlled by) his three sisters, Mori quickly finds herself sent to boarding school. A Welsh girl in England, crippled and shy, she's already an outsider even before she gets thrown into the brutal politics of an all-teenage-girls boarding school. As Mori comments, in her typical wry way: "It's depressing how much boarding school is just like Enid Blyton showed it, and all the ways it's different are ways it's worse."

And "diary" is meant literally here: the novel actually consists of Mori's day-by-day diary entries, describing her arrival at her father's house, her move to the boarding school, occasional trips back home and so on. Before you start thinking that Morwenna is a female and well-read version of Adrian Mole, let me assure you that this diary makes for much more interesting reading than you might expect, because Mori's way of looking at the world is consistently fascinating -- and not just because she can speak to spirits. She's funny, snarky and self-deprecating, and of course well versed in SF and fantasy. It's a true pleasure to read how she deals with the abrupt changes in her life, the prison-like atmosphere of boarding school, and her mother's attempts to contact and control her. Witnessing her growing confidence and the gradual expansion of her social circle, I genuinely found myself rooting for her.

I doubt that someone who doesn't love SF and fantasy would have the same appreciation for Among Others, because it sometimes seems that Mori's feelings about the books she reads are more important than the actual plot of the novel. Mori's excitement about finding other SFF readers, or discovering a new Roger Zelazny novel in a bookstore, is simply infectious. On the other hand, if you're not familiar with the books and authors she frequently mentions, Among Others might not have the same impact on you. Confession: I haven't read Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., so I wasn't familiar with some of that novel's made-up vocabulary, which Mori applies to her own life several times, but thanks to Wikipedia I learned what a granfalloon and a karass are -- and I'm now also very curious to read this book! Still, whether you get the exact references or not, anyone who spent some of their darker teenage years finding comfort in books will almost automatically identify and empathize with Mori. (Seeing how absurdly happy she gets when discovering that inter-library loans are not only available but free, I found myself wishing I could transport myself to her time and area to hand her a fully loaded e-book reader.)

Aside from the genuine love for science fiction and fantasy that permeates every ounce of this novel, it also features a loving picture of an isolated, intelligent young woman finding her place in life, and a simple but solid present-day fantasy plot that slowly unfolds to reach a satisfying conclusion. Anyone who enjoyed Graham Joyce's The Tooth Fairy will probably love Among Others (and vice versa). The novel reads smoothly, is never boring, and is very hard to put down. Also, Jo Walton's concept of "deniable magic" made me reconsider magic and its "causality" (for want of a better word) in a whole new way.

Exactly how much of Among Others is autobiographical I don't know, but if Jo Walton's fascinating blog entries at Tor.com are an indication, there's at least one quality she undoubtedly shares with Mori: her love for science fiction and fantasy. There's a wonderful passage in Among Others: without planning, Mori and some friends find themselves heading towards the bookstore almost unwittingly. One person mentions that sunflowers are "heliotropes" -- they automatically orient themselves towards the sun -- and then says that Mori and her friends must be bibliotropes. Borrowing that wonderful word, I think it's fair to say that Among Others by Jo Walton is a novel for bibliotropes. Highly recommended.

This was an enjoyable read; I was one of the awkward kids who preferred reading to... anything else, so I could identify with the character of Morwenna. The diary format works well. It felt a wee bit light to me; I would have liked to have seen more about how Morwenna learned magic, more about magic in this world in general. But... it is, I believe, a book for young adults, and so I should not expect the same depth or complexity. I love the description of fairies, different from other worlds I have explored on the page. I think a lot of teens, both girls and boys, would enjoy this book.

(excerpt from my blog review)

"The real magic of "Among Others," to me, is that Mori reminded me of my own teenage self. She would have been a kindred spirit. Of course, I gravitated to philosophy rather than sci-fi at the time, and spent my afternoons in the company of Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, but the sentiment remains the same. Many of you probably had similar experiences, and like Mori, used books as a form of escapism to survive your teenage years. The fairies take a backseat to this overarching theme, but that's okay, and I wouldn't have wanted the story to play out in any other way.

One of the things that I enjoyed here was the way that Jo Walton describes magic. It's a subtle idea, and is treated as the causative force behind coincidences. At several points in the story, I wondered if it was all simply in Mori's head, and that she was inventing the fairies to reconcile herself with a difficult childhood. I changed my mind as the novel progressed, but the fact that magic seemed so normal and almost dismissible made it even more special to me. It makes you feel bad for the people who are unable to recognize it.

As a brief forewarning, "Among Others" is the kind of book that will make you want to read more books. Be prepared for that. It will make you want to spend your evenings curled up with Silverberg, LeGuin, or Zelanzy.

I would recommend this to you if you spent your childhood exploring the worlds found within books. It's not for everyone, obviously, but I get the feeling that most of you reading this are the type of people who would love it."

There is a lot to like about this book. First, much of it takes place in Wales, which for those of us who don't live in the UK is a location we don't hear much about. It was interesting to hear the author (who is Welsh) describe the geography, people, culture, and language. Second, the author creates a potentially exciting fantasy world of magic and fairies that coexists with our world in the late 1970s. The main character, a crippled former twin, creates a lot of narrative and symbolic potential. Finally, the book is unique among fantasy/sci-fi books that I've read, in that instead of building to a showdown of good vs. evil, it takes place after the showdown is over.

But there is a lot to dislike as well. Instead of fully exploring the magic and fairies - which are the most compelling concepts in the book - the author focuses on the narrator's dull existence as a teenage girl who goes to a boarding school. Imagine Harry Potter, except with a lot less magic and killing Voldemort and a lot more hand wringing about whether his classmates liked him or not. The central conflict is between the narrator and her mother, but (MINOR SPOILER) the actual confrontation between them does not take place until the last 5 pages of the story, making for a deeply unsatisfying climax. The character of the mother in general is almost criminally underdeveloped; she is the main antagonist but it is never made clear exactly what she has done that makes her so evil. Adding to the story's general awkwardness are a plethora of unfired Chekhov's guns, a completely unnecessary incestuous encounter, and a never-ending barrage of references to 70s era sci-fi books that might impress the few people who have read more than 10% of them but eventually grows irritating to those of us who haven't.

This book held my interest until the very end, because I kept expecting a grand finale that would tie up all the loose ends and answer the numerous questions the plot generated. If that ending had existed, it would have made up for all the tedious discussion of daily life in the boarding school. Sadly, no such ending was forthcoming.

This was an enjoyable read; I was one of the awkward kids who preferred reading to... anything else, so I could identify with the character of Morwenna. The diary format works well. It felt a wee bit light to me; I would have liked to have seen more about how Morwenna learned magic, more about magic in this world in general. But... it is, I believe, a book for young adults, and so I should not expect the same depth or complexity. I love the description of fairies, different from other worlds I have explored on the page. I think a lot of teens, both girls and boys, would enjoy this book.

(excerpt from my blog review)

"The real magic of "Among Others," to me, is that Mori reminded me of my own teenage self. She would have been a kindred spirit. Of course, I gravitated to philosophy rather than sci-fi at the time, and spent my afternoons in the company of Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, but the sentiment remains the same. Many of you probably had similar experiences, and like Mori, used books as a form of escapism to survive your teenage years. The fairies take a backseat to this overarching theme, but that's okay, and I wouldn't have wanted the story to play out in any other way.

One of the things that I enjoyed here was the way that Jo Walton describes magic. It's a subtle idea, and is treated as the causative force behind coincidences. At several points in the story, I wondered if it was all simply in Mori's head, and that she was inventing the fairies to reconcile herself with a difficult childhood. I changed my mind as the novel progressed, but the fact that magic seemed so normal and almost dismissible made it even more special to me. It makes you feel bad for the people who are unable to recognize it.

As a brief forewarning, "Among Others" is the kind of book that will make you want to read more books. Be prepared for that. It will make you want to spend your evenings curled up with Silverberg, LeGuin, or Zelanzy.

I would recommend this to you if you spent your childhood exploring the worlds found within books. It's not for everyone, obviously, but I get the feeling that most of you reading this are the type of people who would love it."

There is a lot to like about this book. First, much of it takes place in Wales, which for those of us who don't live in the UK is a location we don't hear much about. It was interesting to hear the author (who is Welsh) describe the geography, people, culture, and language. Second, the author creates a potentially exciting fantasy world of magic and fairies that coexists with our world in the late 1970s. The main character, a crippled former twin, creates a lot of narrative and symbolic potential. Finally, the book is unique among fantasy/sci-fi books that I've read, in that instead of building to a showdown of good vs. evil, it takes place after the showdown is over.

But there is a lot to dislike as well. Instead of fully exploring the magic and fairies - which are the most compelling concepts in the book - the author focuses on the narrator's dull existence as a teenage girl who goes to a boarding school. Imagine Harry Potter, except with a lot less magic and killing Voldemort and a lot more hand wringing about whether his classmates liked him or not. The central conflict is between the narrator and her mother, but (MINOR SPOILER) the actual confrontation between them does not take place until the last 5 pages of the story, making for a deeply unsatisfying climax. The character of the mother in general is almost criminally underdeveloped; she is the main antagonist but it is never made clear exactly what she has done that makes her so evil. Adding to the story's general awkwardness are a plethora of unfired Chekhov's guns, a completely unnecessary incestuous encounter, and a never-ending barrage of references to 70s era sci-fi books that might impress the few people who have read more than 10% of them but eventually grows irritating to those of us who haven't.

This book held my interest until the very end, because I kept expecting a grand finale that would tie up all the loose ends and answer the numerous questions the plot generated. If that ending had existed, it would have made up for all the tedious discussion of daily life in the boarding school. Sadly, no such ending was forthcoming.

Wonderfully written journal of an outcast, or is she? I connected with this book partially because I spent my youth reading scifi and fantasy and wholly because of the beautiful writing. Give it a read I think you will enjoy it. I know a few reviewers have talked about the holes in the story, but that's what you would have in a journal. The book takes place solely from the perspective of one girl: anything she doesn't see or hear or know will never make it into her journal. Read it and take it for what it is.

Although I read until the end to find out what happens (spoiler: not much really), I was very disappointed with this book. The teenage Welsh boarding school narrator is infuriatingly ambiguous, diffident, and her "voice" becomes really monotonous. It is more of a love letter to 70s science fiction and the joys of the inter-library loan system. I thrilled at the mention of books I had also read and loved and breathed as a young girl.... but found myself wishing I knew more about *this* young girl.

Unfortunately, this audiobook was not my favorite - which perhaps explains why it was so easy to take a long break from listening to it! It is not a bad book, really, but the author chose to have this coming-of-age-story be relayed through journal entries. I think it would have perhaps been more successful in print version. Though I originally though that the accent would add to the fun of this, the narrator’s voice can be a bit distracting in the performance with some accents overly emphasized. What I like the most about the book is the obvious passion the journaler, Mor, has for reading - particularly Science Fiction novels. Though I have read quite a bit in this genre as well, this book includes her reactions to many titles that I had never even heard of! In fact, the majority of the book seems to be an outlet for discussion on SF literature - with a few classics sprinkled in. School, Mor’s fractured family life, romance and bits of magic are all rather sidelined by recountings of plots, characters, authors and a consistent dislike of maths. The climax feels rather rushed and genuinely unsatisfying - nor does it seem to mesh with the preceding pages (hours listening). Maybe it’s just that Walton too accurately captured a fifteen year old and that is why I never quite connected with the narrator...

I loved this book: the unique approach to magic, the sympathetic main character, and the storyline that transported me. It's important, however, for the reader to be well-versed in classic science fiction, because the main character constantly talks about it. Author Jo Walton has basically combined a fantastic story with a homage to famous SF books, and if you don't know these books, some parts of the narration are not understandable. (And her narration contains spoilers too.) That's the only reason I didn't give five stars. But I highly recommend this book.

It makes me vibrate with irritation to know that this book won both the Hugo and the Nebula. The competition must have been very poor. NOTHING HAPPENS. Read read, wait wait wait, blah blah blah, come on, let's get this story moving, and n-o-t-h-I-n-g h-a-p-p-e-n-s. Apparently the author has a big prob with her mother, all her books have ghastly mothers. So a reader waits waits waits for the Big Confrontation with Evil Momma, which finally happens in the last ten pages, and even then, nothing happens. It was a total waste of my time.

Walton’s character reads science fiction—seems to drink it in—during what I think of as its golden age, the 1970’s. She reads the same authors I did and longs—like I did—to discuss her passion with someone. The story is richer than this, of course. She is a crippled twin whose sister was killed in the same accident, believes her mother is a witch (she’s right) and she knows a number of fairies and sometimes helps them out-as they do her. All this and boarding school too! Can there be a juicier read for female nerds? I don’t think so.

I was one of those kids--socially ostracized, out of step with my peers--who wouldn't have survived my teen years without books. So I could really related to Morwenna. Which makes one reason to love Among Others, but there are so many more. I thought the voice was wonderful--true and real, as if Morwenna was a flesh-and-blood person. I thought Walton's depiction of the subtle, hard-to-trace effects of magic was believable. And I found the ending very satisfying. I loved, loved loved this book.

I would have given this 5 stars if the author had limited the references to science fiction classics just to those that had a clear connection to the development of the story. There were times in the story when it just seemed like name dropping. Otherwise, the development of the characters and the exploration of the psychological issues of being thrust into a new school after experiencing a terrible loss were extremely well-done.

AMONG OTHERS is a fantasy novel.

That's not a categorization; it's an assertion. The novel itself could be read as the diary of an emotionally disturbed young woman, who retreated to the fabulization of her own life to deal with a nearly unbearable trauma and whose voice the reader must mistrust from the ground up. But that's a false reading -- I insist that the faeries in Among Others are real, in all their numinousness and slipperiness, and that what Mori tells us is true, as far as she can tell it. I believe.

AMONG OTHERS throws out another caltrop for the unwary reader: it's a fantasy novel that's in large part about science fiction, about the joy of reading SF books, discovering SF communities, and arguing in the ways that only SFnal people do. But its own story cannot be argued in those terms; its fairies cannot be proven or disproven by logic and close reading. This is a fantasy novel: one must accept Mori when she tells us about her life and her secret knowledge, and we must believe her. We must believe her. No one else could tell us these things.

Who is Mori? Morwenna Phelps is a plain teenage girl, with a leg and hip damaged by the same hurtling car that killed her twin sister Morganna. Mori is a girl who claims her mother is an evil witch scheming for magical power in nearly indescribable ways. Mori is a Welsh girl who sees fairies and does magic -- which doesn't work the way you think it would. Mori is a girl now in the care of her father, Daniel Markova -- separated from her mother for several years -- and on her way to the moderately posh girls' boarding school Arlinghurst, because that father has no idea what to do with her. Mori is a girl who loves science fiction books with a hunger that radiates off the page, the need of a smart young woman for stories that explain the secrets of this world and all of the others.

And she tells this story, in her own words, as she writes it down in a diary over the course of the 1979-1980 academic year. She views her fellow boarding-school students as if they were an alien race she has to comprehend, with their intra-house sports contests and elaborate points systems and not-quite-homoerotic close friendships. She casts a spell to find friends, and struggles with the idea of magic entirely -- because her mother is still out there, and still seeking to bend Mori to her will through her own magic. She finds her way into the local town, which has a tea shop (source of honey buns, sent to complicated nets of friends to mark status and in-group status at Arlinghurst), and a bookshop, and a library -- and, most of all, eventually, some people Mori can talk to. But what Mori does most of all is read -- Le Guin and Delaney, Cherryh and Tiptree, Silverberg and Brunner (and some non-SF as well, in amongst the others) -- and think about what she read, and plan to go look for more books, and make lists of things she wants to read, and wonders what other books might be out there.

It's not a convoluted plot, or one with lots of action -- though Walton expertly works Mori's voice, telling the reader exactly what's important at any moment but never telling the whole story of anything at once. But plenty of things do happen -- and not just in Mori's head. (Though that's where all of the most interesting things are happening.)

In some other, equally as fictional or real 1979, a teenage boy in Cleveland is voraciously reading Chandler and Hammett, Ross Macdonald and Ian Fleming. And a girl in Perth is discovering Rosemary Sutcliff and Gillian Bradshaw. And a boy in Cape Town is excited by Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard. Among Others is the specific story of Mor and her life, of science fiction and its wonders and communities, but it's also the story of a million bookish young people, who latched onto SF or fantasy or gothics or historicals or sea stories or plays or even YA problem novels -- who latched onto books and the stories they tell as a gateway out of their individual lives and, eventually, used those books to light their way out into the worlds they really wanted to live in. It might be your story. It's my story in many ways. And Jo Walton tells that story superbly, magnificently, amazingly, through Mori Phelps, who is and isn't Jo Walton in the way that only fiction, only fantasy can manage.

I can't recommend this book highly enough to anyone who was ever that misfit kid, reading incessantly to get away from the world that didn't make sense into worlds that did. And I can't describe Among Others' virtues better than Steven Brust does on the back cover:

Amazing. The timing of revelation is perfect and the first-person narrative is flawless. As Mori shuttles between her family's magical intrigues and the transformative books she reads, her story becomes so real that it hurts. In a good way.

AMONG OTHERS is a great fantasy novel, a great novel, a great love letter to the power of books and science fiction, and a great picture of a young person so many of us were like, in our own ways. And I believe in fairies because Mori tells us they're real.

This book probably deserves a higher rating, but after the gushing critical reviews that led me to Among Others, I was a bit disappointed by the experience. The five star reviews (and I'm talking about professional critics, not just the store reviews) and the expectations that followed aren't Jo Walton's fault, of course, and this is a pretty decent book, especially for those who love to read and specifically for those who love SF and fantasy. But, while I hesitate to say nothing happens, the plotting is slight; most of the "action" seems to have already taken place when we begin Mori's story. Even the coming-of-age aspect of the story didn't really move me. Mori is already a fairly mature 15 year old, and while she does discover unexpected things, I never really sensed that painful passage from childhood naivete to adult understanding.

How the book does work is as an homage and compendium of other (possibly better) SF and fantasy books. I've got a list of book to read just from Jo Walton's lists of authors and titles that permeate Among Others. I suspect that it is this aspect of the book that critics went gaga for; they are people who identify with Mori and her bibliophilia (word? Not sure) much more so than a more casual reader like myself. So, I suppose, that if you are a voracious reader (particularly of SF) then you may be more inclined to love this book. Otherwise, temper your enthusiasm if, like me, you are expecting to be blown away based on the hype.

I've never read a book by Jo Walton, so this was a bit of a shocker. I stopped twice to read other things because the book tugged so much at my heartstrings, bringing me back to my own childhood full of reading, mysteries, longings, and abuse. The narrator is a young Welsh girl on the cusp of all sorts of things: grief, growing up, among others. It perfectly captures the exhilaration and absolute necessity of reading for some children; reading, and fantasy and science fiction in particular, build essential bridges to other worlds, teach us about the world we live in and help us to imagine worlds we'd like to see, and, perhaps, how to live a little bit better in both. It doesn't hurt that Mor and I have about the same taste in books, though I started noting gaps in my reading histories, ones I hope to correct soon.

I've noted a few other reviews complaining that the book is at once too pat and too full of loose ends, but for me it's just about perfect. It is not a "complete" story, but no good story is--we're left wondering about a few things, and we don't know what happens, or what really happens, at the end or at other points in the novel. But this is appropriate for a book told in the style of a memoir or a journal, and one that plays very self-consciously with the blurry lines between our world and others'.

A brilliant coming-of-age story with magical elements, which is at the same time a lovely homage to reading, libraries, librarians, and the SF/F genres. I loved this novel and have generated a new list of books and authors to investigate and possibly read based on those mentioned in Among Others. I don't usually read in this genre but this is the best book I've read to date this year. Morwenna is Welsh, 15, and a twin; the setting is England and Wales in 1979. Mor is precocious and her obsession with reading, especially SF/F, helps her to overcome some tragic life circumstances as well as to connect with like-minded others.

In Wales their single mother's spell goes terribly wrong when her daughters interfered by trying to thwart the incantation. Teen Morwenna survives but is severely hurt; her twin sister was not as fortunate as she dies.

Mori flees her raging mother's wrath seeking shelter with her father in England. He welcomes his daughter by immediately shipping her off to a boarding school. Feeling alone, Mori employs a spell seeking souls like her own who escape their troubles with literature. This leads her to a science fiction readers club, but Mori has no time to make friends. She senses her irate mother searches for her to kill her. Mori concludes she has no way to elude her mother much longer and has no place to hide; as her father made his feelings perfectly clear when she first arrived at his home seeking shelter and protection.

Mori makes the tale with her journal focusing on her loneliness and her obsessive need to belong especially since her only friend, her twin, is dead. The teen is realistic and believes she can never truly belong though she yearns for such; as anyone who befriends her becomes instant fodder for her insane mother's wrath. That is why books are her friends. Readers will be hooked by Mori's lament that she will never really belong Among Others though that is her strongest need (Dr. Maslow would have loved to interview Mori, but her insane mom better had not found out); in many ways more so than surviving the anticipated showdown with her mother.

Harriet Klausner

There are few books that I can close and say with certainty that they have an assured place on my bookshelf for the foreseeable future. This was absolutely one of those books.

Among Others is the fantasy tale for realists, a story for storytellers, and a companion for those who were bibliophiles and loners through their childhoods. This is a book that not only makes you wish that it didn't end so that you could keep on reading, but also makes you want to pick up every single other book mentioned within its pages so that you can read them all, too.

I loved how magic worked in this book. Not in big loud flashy ways but in all the subtle ways that make the world work, the ways that reach out and back and connect everything to everything else, and where the real trick is in believe it and knowing it for what it is.

That interconnectivity is what made this book truly amazing. We come in not at the beginning or end of a story, but somewhere in the middle, because the story is life. At times, it felt like a wonderful homage to all those who ever put down a story and wanted to know more about what happened later, because the bulk of the action, the powerful event that shaped lives, happened before Mori starts telling her tale in the first place. But there was still the connection to it. As was there also the connection of the end, the fall of Liz and the events surrounding it, to the very beginning when Mori dropped that first flower in the water and set magic in motion. It was gratifying to see that.

Also interesting was the way the story was told as though reading Mori's diary. Which meant that in addition to the big events that you expect in fantasy, like magic and fairies and all the supernatural elements, you also get a focus on school and growing up and personal likes and dislikes. These things are just as important to the main character as they would be to anyone who can do magic and yet who still is forced to live in the real world, with all its mundane troubles and trials. A good balance was struck.

Ultimately, I think that anyone who passes over this book is going to sorely miss out, because what Walton does here is profound, powerful, and deeply affecting. More than just creating a good story, more than just making a character who can be related to, more than striking that balance between the mundane and the supernatural (or rather, the natural, if you want to look at it that way), all of these things combined to make something that I think is greater than the sum of its parts. This is truly a novel not to be missed.

It is 1979. Mori is a Welsh teenager who has run away from her crazy mother and as a result has been sent to live with her father in England. She attends a boarding school, where she is very much the outcast, and fills her journal with discussions of books and authors and wistful wishes for friends. When she joins a book club at the local library and finds kindred spirits among other readers, she finds a new joy in life. Among Others is a book about the magic of books, as much as anything.

Written in the first person point of view, as a journal, the lyrical and well written prose of Among Others is a joy to read. Walton has great talent at turning an ordinary world into a magical one through her descriptions and narration.

All the discussions of authors that I've read and not read was also a delight. I laughed over discussions of books familiar to me, hearing myself in those discussions. Furthermore, I've now got a list of others to read, based on Mori's insights, that I might not have read otherwise.

Oddly enough--I am a fan of fantasy fiction--the fantasy element was difficult for me to enjoy. Walton painted her world so real and mundane, that when the fantasy elements were interjected, it felt like an imposition, as if she had torn apart the fabric of this world and sewn in a piece from another world. It didn't mesh properly. For me, the magic was Mori's life in books. The fairy magic almost seemed pretend, and I honestly felt cheated at times when the story moved from the "real world" discussion of Mori's friends and fiction addiction to Mori's dealing with the paranormal.

I wouldn't recommend this book across the board, to all bibliophile or all fantasy/sci fi readers. I think it's only going to find it's niche with those who are both devout bibliophiles as well as being fans of sci fi and fantasy novels.

This was my first time reading a novel by Jo Walsh, but it certainly will not be my last. If her other novels are as well written, I may have found a new favorite author.

I'm kind of torn because I really wanted to love this book, but in the end, it was just missing something. The ending was one of the most rushed things I've ever read. I love how books are romanticized, and anyone who is a book lover will identify with Mor's true love and connection (albeit somewhat snobby/limited to SciFi) of books. I do love that in the end, this is a book about the magic of books. But there was so much blank space in the middle where not much happened, and that's a shame. There are also a lot of blanks, the situation with her aunts, what actually ended up happening with her mom, what the fairies were, and that's disheartening to walk away from. I don't know what else to say. I really wanted this to be the perfect book and I'm pretty sad that it wasn't coherent enough to be when it had all the right ingredients.

This book was eerie in that the main charterer was my exact age, and she was so eerily similar to myself. The book, and what I felt about the author, reminded me a lot of Neil Gaiman. Neil has written that books were a safe healthy escape for him when he was young, and he knows that many others are/were just like him in that way. This main character & myself are/were that way. This book also falls into Neil Gaiman usual genre. I am looking forward to reading the next book.

Really identified with the character of Mor. Bookish and frequently feeling left out. Plus, there are so many new books mentioned in the text to try out! I was sorry when it was over. Enjoyed entering this world.

This is one of those books that draws you in with a wonderful narrative voice. I was attached to Morwen. I loved listening to her and wanted to know what would happen. For the most part, nothing did. Still, I found it very hard to put down. The world and the voice were completely captivating. It's worth reading for that alone.

Picked this book up from the library based on awards buzz. As a love letter to classic Sci Fi and Fantasy, she knows her stuff. As a story with characters, motivations, drama, not so much. It strikes me that this book is supposed to be a snapshot into the life of a character that isn't interesting, except for hints of some weirdness going on that doesn't happen until most of the way through the book. This weirdness being the only interesting thing happening is of course quickly abandoned to continue talking about other things nobody cares about. I didn't finish it, had about 50 pages to go or something.

Positive: The writing is good, definitely feel like the voice is strong, regardless of how boring the character is.

Not quite a fantasy novel, not quite literary fiction and not quite a list of fave sci-fi novels...but a little of each.

I couldn't tell whether "Among Others" is the account of a delusion or if it's a fantasy. That kept me turning pages. I did not like the ending one little bit. I loathed the fact that Ms. Walton compelled herself to reference over 200 sci-fi novels in a 300+ page book. Distracting to the nth.

I wish the author had left 90% of the references to other novels on the cutting-room floor. But maybe that's how she won a Hugo.

She sees fairies. Her mother is a very bad witch. Her new boyfriend is handsome and reads as much SF as she. They discuss books, which leads me to Walton's re-reading of the classics of science fiction and fantasy, What Makes this Book So Great.

Ok, here goes. Among others is at heart, a coming of age story. Jo Walton herself characterized it as a woman's intellectual coming of age story. Mori (short for Morwenna), is fifteen years old and has run away from her crazy witch of a mother (no, she is actually a witch) not too long after the untimely death of her sister Mor (short for Morganna). We meet her after she has been through a children's home and is meeting her Father, who left her mother just after the girls were born, for the first time. The book follows Mori over a few month period in which she deals with being an outcast, her evil witch mother, faeries, boys, coming to grips with the death of her twin, and a squishy kind of magic that doesn't have any clear rules or laws, all through the ideological lens created by the great sci-fi and fantasy books of the late 70's and early 80's.

There is really only one or two things about this novel that I didn't like. The biggest, I think, has to do with the character of Mori. Walton's characterization is definitely first rate (which I may get to later), so my quibble is not with that, but I had this nagging feeling that Mori was too pragmatic, too sensible in thought and action for any 15 year old that I have ever known, (or been, I suppose). By pragmatic, the most obvious examples are the way she thinks about sex and homosexuality, and the way she thinks about class and class division. It feels like Mori is constructed to be an ideal fifteen year old by today's world's standards, and then put back into the early 80's. I just had a little trouble believing it.

The second thing is that I was disappointed that I had not read a lot of the books mentioned in Among Others, even though I consider myself fairly well read in sci-fi and fantasy. To put a finer point on, I think book was meant for those who love fantastical fiction and grew (or at least read widely during) the 70s and 80s, not someone like me who has read widely in the late 90's up to today. Anyway, that being said, I have read Lewis, Tolkein, some Zelanzy, some Heinlen, some LeGuin, some Vonnegut etcetera. But apparently not most of the ones that are mentioned in the book. I guess I'm really just sad that there is at least one layer to Walton's book that is currently inaccessible to me.

So I wrote much more on the negatives than I meant to . . . The positives are much more numerous, but I honestly don't think I'm going to have time to treat them all appropriately.

Probably the best praise that can be given to a book is verisimilitude, Among Others positively reeks with it. I don't usually associate fantasies with verisimilitude, but if faeries and magic did exist, Walton does a pretty convincing job of telling me what it might look like. I love how the faeries are somehow more natural, they are sometimes beautiful, but most often strange yet believable if incomprehensible. And I love the way the magic is squishy; it doesn't have rules per se and there is no ways to be certain that magic was being used, because its effects can be easily rationalized away.

I guess this is kind of a counter to my critique of Mori's character. One of Mori's defining characteristics is pragmatism and clarity of thought regarding "real" life. Walton beautifully sets this up as both contrast and complement to the fantastic elements of Mori's life. Consequently, the main flaws in all of "the real world" based characters are highlighted. While the majority of the characters are totally in the "real world", they have an utterly unpractical and fantastic outlook on life, regarding what things are important in life, such as class, sports standings, etc.

Walton brilliantly uses magic and fantastic literature to inform Mori's relationships throughout the book, which provides new perspective on old themes Here are a couple of examples. Fantastic literature is used as an escape from the reality, because the reality is almost unbearable for Mori, at least until she meets the SF book club. Also, talking about SF books with Daniel serves as both a way to connect with her estranged father, and a way to keep him at a distance so that Mori doesn't have to ask him hard questions, and her father doesn't have to answer.

Finally, I really enjoyed how Walton gave Mori some serious emotional baggage. Not just the obvious stuff, like the crippled leg, loneliness and dealing with the loss of her sister, but she is so used to getting shafted by life that she feels guilty when good things happen to her. Another example is her relationship with Wim. She feels guilty about the whole korass thing, and so tells him about it and then she gets worried that he is only hanging out with so he can see the faeries!

In summary, this book was fantastic. If you like character driven books as opposed to plot driven, you just have to read it. Even while a bit unbelievable, Mori is such an interesting character that if you don't get to know her through this book, you are really missing out.

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This is the first novel by Jo Walton that I've read. I'd skimmed the reviews and had high expectations; boy, was I disappointed. The book is essentially a paeon to classic science fiction and fantasy disguised as a coming of age story. The protagonist, Mori, is a teen stuck at boarding school whose best friends are the books she reads. Every couple of pages Mori mentions a book that she's read, wants to read, etc. At first, seeing the names of all of those great novels made me think "yeah, I loved that book, too!"; after a while, it felt like I was reading an the store Listmania list: "Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels You Shouldn't Miss!". I did like the way the author places us in the middle of the story. after many of the significant events from Mori's past that are only gradually revealed. Unfortunately, many of them are never completely explained. Walton's magical world is interesting, but it feels like you only glimpse it out of the corner of your eye as you read. For something that seems to be such an integral part of Mori's life, Walton doesn't gives it sufficient exposure.

Overall, this Among Others felt like yet another teen angst book with few redeeming qualities. Many of us were misfits as teens, geeks and readers who felt like we didn't fit in to the popular crowd. It takes a deft hand to make that story feel fresh and interesting; Walton was only mildly successful. And in the spirit of Among Others, I'll do a name drop of my own: if you want a really great coming of age science fiction book, read Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage.

Some people need stories, be they novels or shorter works, with a traditional structure. There are the sort of folk who prefer Star Wars to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and To Kill a Mockingbird to Tree of Life. All terrific movies, but in very different ways. If you have poetry in your soul, and do not require so traditional an approach to storytelling, read this book -- there is a reason it was nominated for all of the field's major awards the year it was published, and a reason that both fandom, and the Science Fiction Writers of America, chose to honor it with their highest reward, the Hugo and the Nebula. Yes, it's that good.

Very readable, and the references to classic science fiction stories are fun, but the climax of the story is too short and not very interesting. The whole book leads up to the climax, but it disappoints.

On the other hand, fun and easy to read. I'd read other stories of hers if I find them.

This was my book club's choice because it was a Hugo and Nebula winner. I knew nothing about the book but I DID think it was for adults and that it had some aspect of science fiction and fantasy. When asked my opinion at my book club I stated that it is a book for teenagers and about teenaged angst, etc. (think Judy Blume)! In a nutshell the book is the diary of a 15 year old girl starting after she ran away from her mother and ending up living with her estranged father and his sisters. They in turn send her off to boarding school. There is some talk in about fairies but it made me wonder was made up, mental illness or just childhood fantasy. Yes, her interest in science fiction was interesting but it felt more like a way for the author to list every sci-fi and fantasy book she could think of! I was VERY underwhelmed with this book and wish I knew that it is a VERY young adult novel and definitely NOT what I would consider anything near science fiction and BARELY fantasy.

This is a wonderful, layered book. There's a fantasy plot, with fairies and magic (both of them darker and stranger than one might expect). There's a boarding school fish-out-of-water plot. There's a dysfunctional-family plot. There is, most of all, the clear voice of Mori through her diary entries as she grapples with all of these things with fierce intelligence and integrity. And twined through it all, there are the books within which Mori finds comfort, and friends, and mentors, and through which she finds a bridge to the people around her. If you ever thought, as Mori does, "I can bear anything as long as there are books," then try this one.

I truly loved most of this book, but found the ending to be too abrupt. I did like the way it formed a pair of bookends with the beginning, but I just wanted more: more detail, more plot, more explanation of what happened with the mother and sister.

I identified with Morwenna, her outsider status and feeling of otherness, her love of inter-library loan, books in general, and SF in particular.

A a
Hold over from when books were read, thought about and discussed. Some fantasy in plot ( or are fairies aliens so then it is SF?). But mostly an incredibly good discussion of great SF authors, plots, and formats. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Oh beware it has teenagers in it (who I happen to enjoy).

Winner of the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel

"Among Others" is a coming-of-age story written in the style of a young girl's journal.

It has taken me several months to decide how I ultimately feel about this book. Immediately after finishing it, I liked it more than I did while reading it. I am immensely impressed with how Jo Walton is able to make the complete book more than the sum of its parts, and how, at least for me, the thesis of it isn't apparent until the whole thing has been read.

The inner world of the main character, Morwenna, is compelling and magical. The way she views and experiences magic is exactly how any intelligent young girl with an imagination and an interest in fantasy/sci fi would explain magic to herself. Morwenna exists in a world inhabited by adults who do crazy, irrational, and frightening things. At any moment her crazy mother or absent father could swoop in and decide to take her away, or threaten her life, or things she can't even anticipate, and so she lives in a constant state of insecurity with regards to the people who are supposed to provide her with security. She has no control over her life. To maintain her sanity, and to give herself a sense of security, she believes that she can affect the world through the use of magic and spells. It is this belief that ultimately saves her.

What I enjoyed most about this book is that it is never made explicitly clear whether or not the magic and fairies are real or in Morwenna's imagination. This is especially true once I finished the book, because at any given time while reading it I was always waiting for that one definitive moment where I knew for sure. On one hand, it could all be true and work exactly as Morwenna described. On the other hand, it could all just be a coping mechanism in her imagination. When I originally read the book I assumed that Morwenna, the narrator, was a reliable witness. I look forward to rereading it knowing that she may not be, and see how it might change the experience.

I also appreciate the way the author handles magic. It is both classic and unique at the same time. I enjoy the way Morwenna thinks about magic all the time, about its rules and how it would or wouldn't work, and how casting spells work. I also enjoyed the fairies. It felt very much like the sort of spellcrafting and fairy knowledge you would get from an ancient part of Europe, from an old woman who learned it from her granny, who learned it from HER granny, who was a hedge witch. It all tickled the part of me that likes to find dusty old books about herbs in the back corner of used book stores, that hoards rusty old keys, and that always looks through holes in stones to see if fairies are around. It's magic that is worn around the edges, a little dirty, a little sinister and unpredictable. You know, "real" magic.

While I was reading, it wasn't exactly a perfect experience for me. It's "another" book involving magic and a boarding school, as we have seen with (of course) Harry Potter, and Lev Grossman's The Magicians, to name a couple. It was well done and seemed appropriate, but I'm just saying it's been done before. In a similar vein, it seems like all of the exciting stuff happens off screen. Morwenna alludes to events that sound very dramatic and exciting, but that happened in the past. Instead we experience a pretty typical series of events for a young person at a boarding school: boys, books, holidays, the difficulty of making friends, etc. Again, it was well done and seemed appropriate, but I hadn't really realize I was getting myself into that type of "coming of age" story prior to starting it. Finally, Morwenna spends a lot of time talking about other science fiction books, about their themes and covers and characters. I really enjoyed this about the book because I am a huge sci fi fan, but occasionally I would have liked to have seen the mentioned cover, or had a more detailed explanation of why Morwenna believed something about a character. Often times she would state an opinion but say nothing more about why. I can understand that this is how a young person would journal, but I would have enjoyed the added detail.

Walton has a way of spinning a world around her words that is evocative of both the modern day and a storied and mythic past. The characters have depth and history and complexity. This is one of the few books I've read that I look forward to reading again.

The book is written in such a descriptive way. She's 15. She saved the world. There's magical realism. And regular teenager problems. I could be her, lost in her world of sci-fi. You don't know what to believe until the end.. is it real or is it really in her head. The part where the book falls short for me is the ending, which was almost like an anti-climax to a beautifully written book.

This was an odd one for me. I wanted to like it, and I think, for the most part I did, but I'm not comfortable saying that I loved it.

First off, it's definitely marketed as a book for adults, but, the main character is a teen, and I can definitely see lots of teens picking this one up and enjoying it. So maybe part of my discomfort with the lines drawn in the sand the determine what is YA and what isn't. Which really doesn't have much to do with this book at all. Ah, well.

This book definitely nails that feeling that you get when you're 15 or 12 or 24 or whenever and you realize that there are other people in the world who are just as passionate about reading and talking about the books you love as you are. Just the giddiness of getting book recommendations and discussing plot and themes and discovering conventions or magazines or websites that discuss the things you love so much! I'm sure there are people out there in the world who never experience this, but, if you have, this book will bring it all rushing back.

Jo Walton has at once written a book to savour and revived my jaded SF palette with some great fantasy. Who would have thought I would end up with a plethora of new books to get stuck into.

Fairies, friendship and a diary style literary prose, this book has it all. I hope that anyone who reads this missive will give it a try. It is well worth the effort and will suit the teenage audience it was written for and the baby boomers where this reviewer belongs. A delightful read and an author I will follow as I can. Peter Eerden.

This is the story of a Welsh 15-year-old girl, Mori, told by way of journal entries. It takes place in 1979 to 1980. Mori loves to read Sci-Fi and is amazingly insightful and articulate on the subject. Her twin sister is dead, her mother is horrid, and her father committed suicide. She believes in magic and, in fact, is able to see fairies. Are they real or simply the imaginings of a lonely girl with an astute and creative mind? You'll have to read it to find out. I found the book tedious at first having not read many (most) of the books Mori speaks of, but I kept reading because I truly enjoyed the clear view into this child's way of thinking. She is extremely intelligent and engaging. Her life at boarding school is a lonely one, but she is never bored. Observant, studious, and able to "leave" her world whenever she has time by reading fantastical stories.

The plot is a hodge-podge of sub-plots, but gains cohesiveness in the second half of the book, when Mori joins a book club and meets a very special person. The story builds to a rousing ending, the excitement and emotional power of which was non-existent throughout the book, so the climax felt as if it had arrived at too quickly and with too much strength, which felt unbalanced when viewing the book as a whole.

Many questions raised were not answered, which I found infuriating. What was her mother's motivation for the evil things she did? Why was her biological father, whom she meets for the first time in the story, so enthralled with his sisters, Mori's aunts. Who were they really?

Aside from this frustration and never finding out more about these dangling sub-plots, I did enjoy the book very much. I just wish the ending lasted longer and I knew more about the supporting characters who were tantalizingly interesting, but never fully realized.

This is a stunningly wonderful book.

I have never read anything that so perfectly captures the experience of being fifteen, a science fiction reader just discovering some of the greats of the field (not to mention fandom!), the new kid in school who doesn't quite fit in, the young woman just starting to reach for adulthood, and not sure where she fits in a family where no one except her imperfectly known father seems to share her interests and concerns.

Of course, Morwenna's problems are in a whole different league from my own at her age. Morwenna's twin sister was killed in a car accident that left Morwenna crippled. That accident was their witch mother's retaliation for their successful thwarting of her spell intended to make her a Dark Queen. Now Morwenna is dependent on the father she's never met.

On the one hand, Morwenna and her father Daniel bond over their love of science fiction. On the other hand, her aunts, his three sisters, decide that she belongs at Arlinghurst, the same boarding school they attended, so that's where she goes. It's a tough transition for her, a crippled girl among enthusiastic athletes, a Welsh girl amongst mostly upper middle class English girls, an enthusiastic reader amongst students who think reading is only for studying. But she's smart, and determined, and doesn't really see any better alternatives, so she finds ways to cope.

And as she struggles to find her own place, and her own friends, and her own path, she discovers that the threat from her mother is not over. Together with all the normal adolescent challenges, Morwenna also does battle with her mother's hostility and ambitions, the ethics of magic, and the desire and opportunity to be reunited with her sister.

This is a beautifully written book, lovingly and convincingly depicting both adolescent angst and the joys of discovering science fiction and the community of science fiction fandom.

Highly recommended.

I purchased this book and have received no compensation from the publisher or anyone else for reading and reviewing it.

This book, in and of itself, defies any ordinary classification. Walton is an extremely complex writer, with an incredibly light touch. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who loves the unexpected.

When you've saved your world and paid the price, what do you do next? How do you find yourself again? A beautiful story of growing past up, of growing out. Still not sure it's sci-fi, but perhaps magic is just science we don't have yet.

Amazing the levels this book reaches. There is the coming of age and psychological stages of group whether this is culture family or institutions. Then she writes of real and unreal of patterns that speak to modern physics and ancient myths. The beauty is the weaving of this tale. What part do you resonate to? Jo Walton is a bard.

A wonderful book. I loved the whimsy, magical realism, and the passion of the main character. Anyone who has deeply loved books can relate to this.
Also, it's so refreshing to have a female main character whose main interest isn't finding a boyfriend.

This book was not at all what I expected. Yet it was compelling. I enjoyed the discussion of SF titles and authors that ran throughout the narrative. The main character was strong in unexpected ways. The ending was satisfying.

The book is sweet to read and short, It's enjoyable light reading and gives you tips on A LOT of new SciFi books to read, but in the end the story is not quite as rounded as one would like and the message gets lost in a lot of noise.

This is a wonderful novel. I fell in love with the voice, which reminded me of Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle". It's a precocious 15 year old's journal, as she navigates the confusions of adolescence, darkened by her sister's death. She's lost her home with her extended family in Wales, and is living in an English girl's boarding school, with holidays at her father's house -- the father that she just met for the first time. Her world includes fairies, and magic, and Walton does an amazing job of making that both believable, and at the same time making it feasible for it to be all in Mori's imagination. Mori is confident and analytical. She turns that analysis on herself, what she sees around her, and the books she reads. That logical analysis can be quite funny, as she tries to make sense of the scoring system and rules in her new boarding school and family.

She adores books, especially SF and fantasy. This book is a love letter to librarians, to interlibrary loan, and to SF fandom. She mentions all the books she's reading, with wonderful comments on them. It conjures up the wonder of discovering books as a child, if you were one of those kids. While many of the books she mentions are SF or fantasy, not all are. Others that come up include Josephine Tey, Mary Renault, Plato, Shakespeare, and T. S. Eliot. She is thoroughly steeped in SF, though. When she has nightmares, and wakes up terrified, she uses the litany against fear from Dune, and it works.

Among Others is a fun, interesting book, and I sped through it in one day. Looking back though, several flaws detract from what might otherwise have been excellent.

Through her journal entries (which are really just regular first-person narration), this book relates the story of Mori, a Welsh teenager and lover of science fiction who is sent to an upper-class English boarding school after fleeing her abusive mother. Mori doesn't fit in with the other girls and spends the bulk of her time reading, primarily science fiction. She's a sympathetic and relatable character, particularly if you were an odd kid who read a lot; I love the way she talks about the inter-house athletic competitions, for instance, which everyone else takes very seriously and she couldn't care less about. The book is well-written and does a great job of keeping questions in the reader's mind at all times, particularly as Mori takes her time in telling us about her past. And the discussions of class tensions in 1970's England, as well as the trouble readers had to take to find books by their favorite authors before the Internet (we're spoiled nowadays!) were interesting.

A couple of minor SPOILERS follow.

But there are several problems. Most notable (and ironic, since Mori criticizes other books for this) is that the book is just way too pat. Mori forms close bonds almost instantaneously with every other reader she meets (and there are a lot of them, as she joins a book club halfway through); the first guy to catch her eye soon becomes her boyfriend; the last couple pages are almost sickeningly sweet. And then there are all the unanswered questions. One subplot deals with Mori's aunts trying to force her to get her ears pierced, which she believes will stop her from doing magic--but she never discovers their motivation. We never find out what's really behind the aunts' relationship with Mori's father, nor why their father committed suicide, despite hints that this would be important. Etc. We're briefly given a lot of fascinating information about Mori's extended family, but it's never followed up on, some of it never referred to again. I'm not sure why the author dangled so many tantalizing hooks if they were irrelevant to the story at hand.

So the book is worth a read, probably especially if you've read much 1970's science fiction (I haven't, and I don't feel that this detracted from my understanding of the book, but someone who's read most of the books Mori discusses would probably enjoy those parts more). Still, it isn't quite what it could have been. If it had been longer, enough to make Mori work harder to earn her happy ending and to flesh out more of the characters and their stories, I suspect it would have been excellent.

I was torn reading this book. On the one hand, I enjoyed it so much, Mori's voice and her love of books and the magic, that I wanted to race through it. on the other hand, I didn't want it to end. You need to love sci fi, and have read at least Lord of the Rings to keep up. One of the best books that I've read in a while. What a delight.

I read this book aloud to my wife, so I read carefully and didn't skim. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have anyway. The voice of the book is compelling, immediate, and charming. The fantastic elements never overpower the human story at the center of the book. The relationships between the people (and among the books within the story) are rich and complex without being overpowering. The magic is deep and eerie and gorgeous.

If you know the books being read by the protagonist, it adds a layer to the story, but even someone who doesn't will take enough of the sense of that literature to follow along.

Jo Walton has been one of my favorite authors since I came across Farthing, and Among Others may be my favorite of her books. She's doing some of the most interesting and powerful work in the genre, and this is a fine example of it.

absolutely bril!! only bad thing was, I got that sad feeling when it was done that there wasn't more. I was such a scifi reader as a child. this brought back so many memories. if you loved sf as a child. or if you are a 60 year old granny and still read speculative fiction this is your book. the magic part skillfully combined with the real makes you believe everything.

I wanted to like this book, but it was driving me crazy within the first 50 pages. Incessant (nearly every other page, sometimes more) mentions of other books and characters, but with no (or very little) back story, so, if you hadn't read any of the books mentioned, it meant very little. I'm guessing it probably didn't mean much even if you had read the books mentioned, but it might not have been quite so annoying. I stuck with it because it's a Nebula winner, but I don't really understand why it's a Nebula winner unless all the people who voted are mentioned in the book. I didn't want to have to stop and look up plot synopses of other stories while reading this one. It drove me absolutely batty. The plot itself is told in journal entries for the length of the book. The plot is OK, but I was constantly distracted every time another story was mentioned, thinking things like, "Well, I guess if I had read that, it would mean something to me" or "How is this furthering the plot, you know, AT ALL?" I'm just relieved it didn't end on a cliffhanger, otherwise I would have Hulked out. In the end, I kept going because A. I wanted to find out what happened and B. I am a masochist, not necessarily in that order.

This is a great book. Not what I would usually read and not what I would have expected to like. But is so well written and presents such a vivid example of the necessity of magic to find meaning in everyday life and suffering that I would recommend it for readers of all persuasions.

I loved this book. The author creates an interesting atmosphere and an engaging outsider heroine. Many threads are left dangling and I have to agree with one reviewer that the world could be even more well developed- this is not Lord of the Rings- but I would definitely recommend this novel and will look for other books by this author.

There is no way this book should have won the Hugo Award. It was mediocre at best. All Jo Walton did was a good job of sucking up to the top Science Fiction Writers by making references to them all in this book. I was very disappointed. Would not recommend.

Peculiar. Slow paced, begins after most of the action has occurred. Reads like atypical teenage girl's diary written by a very strange, perhaps delusional, girl. Yet, by the end, you realize it has drawn you in.

A lovely mix of fantasy with critical reviews of virtually every book I read in the sixties and seventies. The protagonist likes all the same ones I did/do. Nice evocation of magic. Like clouds; there and not there.

This book received some good reviews, so I thought I'd take a look. Unfortunately for me, I found the beginning to be too youth-oriented - as if it was targeting a teenage audience. Because the main characters were children (and their world was seen through their eyes), I couldn't really get into it. That's not a condemnation of the writing style or plot. It simply is not a novel for those looking for a more adult theme.

This compelling story of realistic, completely believable fantasy with one of the strongest and most realistic characters ever created is truly wonderful. I loved it. I'm so glad I read it and it will be a book I will think about and remember for the rest of my life. Read it!

January isn't even over yet, and I've found my favorite book published in 2011.

There is no better description, anywhere, of what it's *like* to be an SF/F fan/reader than this book. There's a plot, there's magic -- or maybe it's sf, maybe it's steampunk, as our protagonist Mor moves among the fairies of post-industrial Wales -- but most of all, there are *books*.

Mor is 15 in 1979, and you know what they say: "The Golden Age of science fiction ... is twelve". She *reads*, she reads sf and fantasy, she reads the books we read in the late 70s, and she thinks about them. They shape her the way books *do*, when you care.

"When you love books enough, books love you back."

I like to try to read the Hugo best novel winners. At least the ones I can find in my local library. Most are great, a few are so-so. I can't believe this won a Hugo.

The book is basically a "coming of age" story of a teenage girl. There is very little magic or plot line. The vast majority of the book is dedicated to referencing hundreds of old sci-fi / fantasy books. If you haven't read most of them (like me), the book becomes very boring.

Read thru the reviews and see how many people use the word "incessant". Skip this one and wait till next year.

From the blurb on the back cover, we are lead to expect an engaging tale of good and evil in a world of magic. If you're looking for this, skip to the last four pages, because that is all you'll get. Most of the book is filled with angsty recollections by a teenager caught in a (mildly) unpleasant situation, and pages and pages and *pages* of tepid one-line reviews of every golden-age sci fi and fantasy writer. I don't know why I read this book to the end--it kept promising something interesting, but never delivered. Don't waste your time: take the author's advice and read some LeGuin instead.

Things missing from this novel:
*A real plot, an arcing story beyond a set of loosely tense events.
*Believable characterization.
*Consistent focus on how messed up someone would have to be to actually relate to the whole world from a scifi lens.

Instead this book focuses to a fault on listing off the author's personal likes and dislikes in speculative fiction, moving on incessantly to relate the love of science fiction and fantasy. Which is a fine element to have, but one needs more than that to build a story around, a measure of real interest and compelling drama. There just isn't that, instead we have a three hundred page love-letter to genre literature. It's an incredibly shallow representation, brief discussion of the appeal of anarchist politics from The Dispossessed will be followed pages later with gushing over C. S. Lewis. It's literature that writes specifically to and of fandom, without using the potential of speculative fiction to actually unsettle, disrupt or think of alternatives. The explicit fantasy elements in this book appear sporadically and with minimal interest, there is nothing creative that it's used for besides the dubious benefit of comparing them more explicitly to past familiar fantasy elements. Beyond the focus on personal taste, I have to say that most of the views here aren't even quirky enough to be surprising or very useful. Heinlein was great but lost focus in later years, Dick was too weird and depressing, Tolkien is still the best fantasy writer ever. It's the type of thing that can only appeal to SF fandoms, but even in that element is really predictable and redundant. This books surrenders a plausible human construction and any real drama for the sake of self-indulgent didactic live-blogging, and within that content turns out to have nothing of substance to say.

The worst speculative fiction novel from 2011 that I have yet read. In no way does this book measure up to the quality of the material it constantly name-drops.

Similar to and worse than: How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu. Which I don't particularly like, but handles its self-aware aspect with a lot more complexity and creativity than Walton.

Similar to and better than: Turn Coat by Jim Buthcer. Geeky in-jokes by a protagonist unable to use the internet, no less.

I love other books by Walton very much. This one was a real disappointment. It starts very slowly, and continues that way for the whole book. The first bit of active conflict occurs more than halfway through the book, between Mori and her aunts over their Christmas gift to her, and is brief and low-key. The rest is all hints and memories, anxiety, description, and SF book reviews. There are about 4 pages of good action at the very end.

I enjoy other books that are not full of conflict and action, but when a book begins by hinting of magic and conflict and Ruling the World, and the blurb emphasizes the same, I expect those things to be handled before the last pages. It felt more like a teenage memoir of feelings and social anxieties with fantasy added, especially since all the magic up till the end, other than seeing and talking to fairies, was of the "magic or coincidence?" type.

The book raises expectations that it does not fulfill.

Unfortunately, I read enough of the book that I felt I *had* to finish it. It really wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't because nothing really happened. It was utterly unmemorable and moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. The story alluded to and attempted to build upon a conflict - however, I had to read more than half the book before learning what it was. It was revealed in such an anti-climactic manner that it was a total disappointment. There was nearly no fantasy factor and was little more than a diary of a girl who reads far too much. She journals about her thoughts and feelings about her family and classmates (which lack depth) and dozens of book reviews. If I wanted to read book reviews, I would check out the NY Times.

Read on the Kindle...at the 10% mark I said out loud (never good while reading a book), "If nothing happens by 20% I am giving up on this one...". At 21%, I gave up. Way too much exposition about the extended family members, too little about how her twin had died and she was injured. And way too many segue ways instead of presenting a clearer story. At the 20% mark, nothing had happened that could not have been summed up in one chapter. Better books to read.

I can see why this won the Nebula being that numerous science fiction and fantasy novels are named in the novel but either the Nebula list was very week or all the science fiction writers just loved this idea, however I didn't... I ended up not finishing this book... there just isn't much of a story, ie, nothing is going on so I gave up and stopped reading after about reading about 20 percent of the novel. See for your self.

I was excited about reading this book after reading all of the reviews. I don't know, Is it me or did this book have no plot whatsoever? What am I missing? I listened to this book on audio and the readers voice was awesome, but the awesomeness ended there. I actually was listening to it one day while I was running and I had to turn it off because there was so much whining about the character getting her ears pierced. Whine, whine, whine, I get enough of that in real life.
I didn't like it at all.

If you are looking for magic you will find little in this story. If you want to read a young girl's diary, you are better off with Anne Frank. If you haven't read the SF classics, you won't get half off the references. Why did this book win awards?